Court: child molester will serve 7 yr. sentence for old case

A convicted child molester will spend the next seven years in prison for a previous sentence that slipped through the cracks at the Magistrate’s Court. According to court reports, this morning Chief Magistrate Herbert Lord held a special hearing into the matter of Godfrey Coote. Earlier this month, Coote was fined twenty-five hundred dollars after he was found guilty of performing oral sex on an eight year old girl. But as that case was being tried, someone thought his name sounded familiar and a little digging revealed that in January 2000, Coote had been sentenced in absentia to seven years for aggravated burglary in connection with an attack against his ex-girlfriend. In court today, the convict told Chief Magistrate Lord, “I admit to the offence, but I was in society paying taxes and not giving trouble…I have three pickney with that woman and lived with her for six years. I want to ask you to put time served on the record and release me.” But Lord would have none of it, telling Coote, “On the day Paslow building was burning…people was shouting burn fire burn, thinking all documents would be burnt up, but as you see in this case, we are still picking up the cases. You will spend seven years with effect from today and it’s too late to appeal.” Coote was transported to the Hattieville Prison this afternoon to begin serving his sentence.