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

Supreme Court Judge Horace Marsh in sentencing 52-year-old woodcrafter Agon Stephens, and 54-year-old businessman and taxi operator Narcot Graham, both of Kingston addresses stressed that the offence was very serious.

The men were charged with trafficking in person, but on Monday they pleaded guilty in the Home Circuit Court to the lesser offence.

Graham and Stephens had made plans in May 2006 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.

The men had planned with the undercover police officer for him to have sexual intercourse with the girl for US$400.

The money was paid to the men and when the police later swooped down on them, they were held with the money in their possession.