Rapist jailed for 13 1/2 years for child grooming: Cayman News Agency

(CNS): A 34-year-old man was sentenced to 13 years and six months in prison last September for molesting and raping a girl aged 11 and 12. Travis Arlington Ebanks was sentenced in April, but the court only recently released the verdict. Ebanks was found guilty of molesting the girl, who was only 9 years old, and using a Snapchat account to deceive the girl by pretending to be 14 years old.

According to the details of the case, the girl blocked Ebanks several times, but he then created new accounts under different names to pursue her. The court found that Ebanks had planned the crime when he first raped the girl in the back seat of a car he borrowed from his boss. He lured the girl to meet him and threatened that if the girl did not meet him, he would tell her family and friends about the bad things she had done.

Despite the girl’s cries and demands for him to stop, Ebanks continued to rape her. A few weeks later, around her 12th birthday, he managed to lure her to meet him again and raped her again in a different location in the back seat of a borrowed car.

The court heard in a victim impact statement how the young victim blamed herself and thought she had done something wrong. She thought he was a friend and trusted him. However, she said she realised it was not her fault “it was his”.

In mitigation, his lawyers argued that Ebanks expressed remorse for what had happened to the victim and was sorry for what she had gone through. The offences occurred after problems arose in his long-term relationship with his daughter’s mother, whom he had not seen for years. He became depressed, frustrated and began to feel hopeless. He left home and became a loner.

He has been estranged from his family since he was detained but has tried to keep his life in order by taking part in sporting activities. The court heard he has worked towards rehabilitation by regularly attending the prison’s chapel and completing several courses.

The court also received a character statement from MP David White, who said he had known Ebanks for more than a decade and their families were close friends. “I have always known Travis Ebanks to be a hard-working, very kind man,” White wrote of the convicted child rapist.

In addition to the 13-and-a-half-year prison sentence, the court directed that a Sexual Harm Prevention Order be imposed for 10 years upon his release from prison.