A 23-year-old confessed serial rapist, who was sentenced to 62 years imprisonment for two counts of rape, has moved to the Court of Appeal to challenge the severity of the sentence.

Leon Jordan of Anna Catherina, West Coast, Demerara (WCD), had confessed to raping two underaged girls and a woman.

Through an attorney, he filed an appeal at the Appeal Court, Kingston.

In June 2019, Jordan had opted to plead guilty before Justice Brassington Reynolds to the three charges saying, “Is better to talk the truth before you regret not talking the truth.”

Particulars of the first charge stated that, on February 2, 2012, in the county of Demerara, Jordan engaged in sexual penetration of a child under the age of 16. The child was seven years old, and Jordan was 15.

Jordan is said to be known to the victim and her family. On the day in question, while on his bicycle, he rode up to the little girl while she was on her way home from school and told her that her mother sent him to buy chicken and he would take her home when he was finished.

He then grabbed the child and forced her onto his bicycle and whispered to her “If you scream I will juk you with a knife.” He then pulled her into a bushy area and raped her, while placing the knife to her neck.

Jordan left the child under a bus shed, and she made her way home and collapsed. The child was bleeding and told her mother that Jordan had raped her.

The second charge stated that, on January 13, 2013, in the county of Demerara, Jordan engaged in sexual penetration of a child aged 14 years. He was 16 at that time.

The third offence was committed on October 25, 2016, when Jordon, then 19 years old, engaged in sexual penetration with a woman without her consent.

On the day in question, Jordan accosted the woman, dragged her into a bushy area and forced himself on her. The woman put up a fight, and Jordon bit off one of her eyelids and then spat it onto the ground. With blood gushing from the woman’s eye, the defendant raped her and made good his escape.

The victim was hospitalised for several days and had to undergo several rounds of corrective surgery to save her eyesight.

Justice Reynolds at the Demerara High Court sentenced Jordon to 12 years for raping the 7-year-old girl; 15 years for raping the 14-year-old girl and 35 years for raping the woman, the sentences to run consecutively. He will have to spend 62 years behind bars, with the possibility of parole after serving 30 years.

In his appeal, Jordan is claiming that the Judge did not live up to the plea bargain and imposed a severe sentence on him.