Convicted killer Chuck Attin gets additional 22 years for rape

Justice Kathy-Ann Waterman-Latchoo. - File photo

THREE decades after he and another man murdered two women in Westmoorings, convicted killer Chuck Attin has had 22 years, nine months and 15 days tacked on to his sentence for the rape of one of the women’s maids.

The High Court sentenced Attin, also known as Clint Pierre, to more than 22 years in prison for rape after he pleaded guilty to multiple sexual offences dating back to 1994, when he murdered Candace Scott, 23, and Karen Sa Gomes, 31.

Justice Kathy Ann Waterman-Latchoo imposed a sentence of 26 years and eight months’ imprisonment with hard labour on the rape charge, with credit given for three years, ten months, and five days already served. This results in a remaining sentence of 22 years, nine months and 25 days.

Attin also received sentences of one year and four months each for serious indecency and buggery. However, both of those sentences were fully extinguished after the court credited him with time already served. The sentences took effect from December 12.

Attin is already serving time, at the court’s pleasure, for Scott and Sa Gomes’s murders, as he was one of the youngest murderers convicted, at just 15, in 1997.

Attin, formerly of Nile Street, Cocorite, was initially sentenced by Justice Lionel Jones to be detained at the State’s pleasure, but this was later challenged in a constitutional motion, and the law was changed so that child murderers, who cannot face the death penalty because of their age, would be detained at the court’s pleasure, with periodic reviews.

In 2004, then Justice Herbert Volney sentenced Attin to a minimum of 25 years, after which he would return to court for a review of his sentence.

Volney’s ruling was partly upheld by the Court of Appeal, which ruled the 25-year punitive element of the sentence was not excessive, having regard to the brutality of the case, but that the sentence should come up for review before expiration of the term.

Attin’s last review was in March 2023, when High Court judge Hayden St Clair-Douglas held that his detention should continue.

In October, Attin pleaded guilty to the rape, serious indecency and buggery charges and was sentenced by Justice Waterman-Latchoo, after he accepted a maximum sentence indication (MSI) given by the judge of 28 years.

At his sentencing hearing, Attin’s attorney, Michelle Ali, of the Public Defenders’ Department, argued that due to the state’s delay in filing the indictment for rape in October 1996, the court should consider applying a discount while deducting the time spent in custody since 1994, when he was arrested for the murders.

Waterman-Latchoo did not agree.

She also did not agree that the sentences should run concurrently, ordering that they run consecutively since, had he been sentenced in 1996, they would have been consecutive sentences.

Another man, Noel Seepersad, was also convicted of killing the women and sentenced to hang. He appealed his conviction, but his petition to the Privy Council for special leave was dismissed.

According to the facts involving the rape and other sexual offences charges, on the morning of July 11, 1994, the Scotts' maid arrived at the home of her employers, Johnathon and Candace Scott, at Anchor Drive, Westmoorings.

Later that morning, Candace Scott left the house with her daughter, leaving the worker alone with the Scotts’ infant son.

Shortly before midday, two men arrived at the property claiming they were there to carry out painting work. After initially turning them away, when Johnathon Scott said he knew nothing about a painting job, the maid was later confronted inside the house.

According to court evidence, the men threatened to kill her, and she was ordered to take the baby upstairs, which she did.

While Seepersad ransacked the Scotts’ master bedroom, Attin forced the maid to kiss him before sexually assaulting her. Attin then got angry after he found out she lied about her name, and hit her with a chopper. He threatened to kill the child when he began to cry.

During the ordeal, the maid was allowed to bathe the baby, but while doing so, Attin cut off her underwear with a Chinese chopper. Moments later, he raped her while threatening her. She was also forced to perform oral sex on Seepersad.

During the ordeal, the victim was raped and buggered several times by both men.

When Candace Scott returned home in the afternoon, she was ambushed. A family friend, Karen Sa Gomes, also arrived and was similarly confronted. Police later discovered Scott and Sa Gomes’s bodies in separate rooms of the house.

Emergency calls were made later that day, and officers from the Four Roads Police Station responded. The maid was taken to the police station and then to a health facility, where forensic examinations were conducted.

Subsequent analysis confirmed the presence of biological evidence, and investigators recovered fingerprint evidence at the scene. Police processing of the crime scene continued in the days that followed, and Attin was identified by the maid in an identification parade, and Seepersad was seen driving Sa Gomes’s car on the same day with Attin as a passenger.

Shervon Noreiga represented the state.