USING illiteracy as an excuse for recidivism will soon come to an end, a High Court judge warned one prisoner who pleaded guilty to kidnapping a teenage girl in 2007. The girl was abducted minutes after she left school and was heading for a bus home.

On Wednesday, Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds told Larry La Fon, “The excuse of illiteracy will come to an end; society will expect you to do better for yourself.

“If you think the court is a revolving door for prison, do something about it. Go learn to read. It is free and available at every public library,” the judge said as she spoke of the availability of adult literacy classes run by ALTA (Adult Literacy Tutors Association) nationwide.

“I have said (in another forum) that illiteracy is connected to recidivism.”

In a plea in mitigation, La Fon’s attorney Roshan Tota-Maharaj mentioned his client’s inability to read but the judge said it was the numerous entreaties he made on the girl’s behalf.

La Fon and another man were jointly charged with the 17-year-old kidnapping on October 19, 2007.

He pleaded guilty while the other man’s matter was transferred to another judge.

La Fon was sentenced to nine years but received a two-year discount for his pleading with his accomplice not to kill the girl and for flagging down the police and taking them to rescue her.

He received a one-third discount for his guilty plea and after the five years he spent in prison was also discounted, it was determined he spent an excess of two months in prison for that offence.

La Fon was not immediately ordered released from prison as he may have other matters before other courts.

In the evidence, the girl was leaving her school when she saw La Fon and his accomplice who was her ex-boyfriend. The other man was driving a pickup and he shouted at her to get into the van.

When she refused, the other man instructed La Fon to bring her in. He put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her into the van.

They drove for 20 minutes before the van stalled. Scared for her life, the girl kept asking, “What was going on and why allyuh doing this?”

Both men exited the van to try to get it started when the victim used the opportunity to run out. The incident attracted the attention of some people in a nearby house and the driver of a passing car.

After being asked by the other driver, “What is that boy?” La Fon’s accomplice, speaking to the victim, said, “That is love. Ent yuh father sent me for yuh, behave yourself.”

The girl was crying and trying to fight back. The accomplice stopped another car and they bundled the girl in the car. He stayed with her in the back seat, removing her school tie and shirt and covering her mouth. La Fon sat in the front seat.

These were some of the aggravating factors recognised by the judge in her sentencing.

The accomplice told the driver to stop near some bushes and paid him. All three got out of the car and the victim was pulled by her wrists by her ex-boyfriend while trying to fight him.

These were the aggravating factors of the offence the j