- by Met
The Kingston pastor who repeatedly had sex with a 12-year-old girl who he impregnated has been sentenced to a total of 29 years in prison.
Kenneth Blake, 56, pastor of Harvest Temple Apostolic Church, located on Slipe Pen Road, in St Andrew, has been sentenced to 12 years each for two counts of having sex with a person under 16 years old and five years for sexual touching.
The sentences are to be served simultaneously, meaning Blake will serve 12 years in prison.
The punishment was handed down by Justice Lorna Shelly Williams in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston earlier today.
The Gleaner first reported that Blake was arrested and charged in August 2017 by detectives assigned to the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse.
The charges were filed after the teen gave investigators a detailed statement in which she complained that Blake had sex with her at his St Andrew home when she was 12 years old.
She told investigators that the first time Blake had sex with her was in 2015.
That, she said, happened after the clergyman gave her older sister money to go downtown and “buy some things” then forced himself onto her.
Following this, according to her account, he began giving her gifts to keep quiet about their sexual encounters.
However, everything came to light in August 2017 after she discovered that she was pregnant and confessed everything to her mother.
But Blake denied the accusations, even after two DNA tests found that there was a 99.9 per cent chance he could not be excluded as the father.
The second test was done at a private institution chosen by Blake after he complained that the first test, conducted at the Government Forensic Laboratory, was “tainted”.
He insisted in court that the accusations against him were part of an extortion attempt by the child’s mother and had volunteered to do the first DNA test.
Blake subsequently pleaded guilty in July.