A 30-year-old Pe­nal man was sen­tenced on Tues­day to 37-and-a-half years im­pris­on­ment with hard labour af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed of five counts of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a child, fol­low­ing a judge-alone tri­al.

The man will serve sev­en and a half years as High Court Judge Nali­ni Singh or­dered that the sen­tences on each count run con­cur­rent­ly.

The court heard that the of­fences oc­curred on five sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions be­tween Au­gust 2016 and Feb­ru­ary 2017 in Pe­nal and Siparia. The vic­tim was be­tween 15 and 16 years old at the time, while the man was five years her se­nior and a neigh­bour.