Newbold broke into an 83-year-old woman's home in Cat Island in July 2004, burglarized it and tried to rape her. The woman testifying in court said she grabbed the accused's penis and scrotum mashing them. Newbold bit her to free himself, after which he fled.

Justice Jon Isaacs ordered Newbold receive four lashes at the start of his sentence and four upon his release, but suspended them for three weeks pending possible appeal.

Lashes with a cat-o'-nine-tails was a punishment used by the British Navy in the 18th century. It was outlawed in the Bahamas, a former British colony, many years ago, but reinstated in 1991 in the face of rising crime. The cat was last used in 2000 on a child rapist, according to a spokesman for Nassau attorney general's office.

The cat, is a whip made of knotted cords. Prison guards use the whip at the back of prisoners so convicted, with trails of flesh wounds from the flogging. Former assistant police commissioner Paul Thompson said the cat was an effective form of punishment. He said a long-serving prison governor told him that prisoners who received the cat never returned to prison.

Newbold apologized to the victim after the verdicts were handed down by the judge.

Photo Above: Joan Biggs, 79, raped and murdered at her Northampton, England home on January 27, 2003 by a teenager( Lee Brown, 19 ) who left her body to burn on a cooker.