Despite pleas from defence lawyers for a non-custodial sentence, two elderly men were yesterday each sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment for conspiracy to trafficking in persons involving a 14-year-old girl.

In sentencing 55-year-old woodcrafter Agon Stephens and 57-year-old businessman Narcot Graham, both of Kingston addresses, Supreme Court judge Horace Marsh stressed that the offence was very serious.

"How would you feel if your daughter was the complainant?" the judge asked the men, who said they were the fathers of several children, including daughters.

The men were the first persons to be charged in Jamaica with trafficking in persons. They pleaded guilty on Monday in the Home Circuit Court to the lesser offence of conspiracy to trafficking in persons.

Plans for prostitution

Lisa Palmer, acting senior deputy director of public prosecutions, in outlining the facts of the case, said in May 2006, Graham and Stephens made plans to get the girl involved in prostitution.

The men approached an investigator from New Zealand who was in the island to conduct research into sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and children.

They told the man that they could get a young girl for him to have sexual intercourse with, but he would have to pay them US$400.

The money was paid to the men and the investigator reported the matter to the police. A sting operation was set up and on May 24, 2006, when the men turned up with the girl in the New Kingston area, the police swooped down and arrested and charged them.

They were found with the US$400 in their possession.

Defence lawyers Lloyd McFarlane and Lynden Wellesley pleaded with the judge not to send the men to prison.

The lawyers pointed out that the men had spent nine months in custody before they were granted bail.

The judge said he took into account the fact that the men had pleaded guilty, but insisted that they had to spend time in prison.