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Apr 14, 2018 News
Sexual offences dominate the list of cases published by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), for trial at the April session of the Demerara assizes which commenced two Tuesdays ago, at the High Court in Georgetown.
Out of the 242 cases on the list, 161 are for sexual offences.
The sexual offences include carnal knowledge of a girl under 15 years, carnal knowledge of a girl under 12 years, buggery, rape, indecent assaulting of a male, sexual activity with a child family member, sexual activity with a child by abusing a position of trust, sexual assault and incest by male.
In some cases, more than one person has been indicted for an offence. In other instances an accused has been indicted for up to nine counts of rape of a child under 16 years.
Approximately 176 persons—predominantly males—have been indicted for various types of sexual offences.
Some of these individuals are out on bail.
The other cases on the list include those for the non-bailable offences such as murder, manslaughter, abduction, robbery under-arms, trafficking in narcotic substance, possession of firearm without licence, possession of ammunition without licence, attempt to commit murder, murder in the furtherance or course of a robbery, discharging a loaded firearm with intent, malicious damage to property, obtaining money by false pretence, setting fire to a public building, felonious wounding, unlawful wounding, causing grievous bodily harm, assault causing actual bodily harm and wounding with intent.
The Sexual Offences Court—which is housed in Court Six at the High Court in Georgetown —was commissioned in November last, to deal with such matters.
Thus far for the April session, Justice Jo Ann Barlow, who has been assigned to the Sexual Offences Court, has completed a trial for which Trayvon Giles was indicted on two counts of Rape of a Child Under 16 years.
Giles, who was convicted on one of the two counts on Wednesday, will be sentenced on April 26.
During the January session of the Demerara assizes, 11 cases for sexual offences were heard before Justice Simone Ramlall in the Sexual Offences Court. Four were for the offence of rape. In two of these matters, the accused were found guilty by jury and sentenced respectively to 45 years and 40 years imprisonment.
In another matter, the trial judge upheld a no case submission and directed the jury to return a formal verdict of not guilty. And in the one other case, the accused was acquitted by the jury which returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty. In another five matters for the offence of Sexual Activity with a Child Family Member, one accused was sentenced to life imprisonment and must serve 45 years before becoming eligible for parole.
Another accused who was indicted on four counts was found guilty by the jury and given two life sentences which are to run concurrently with a minimum of 40 years to be served before being eligible for parole.
The accused in one other matter was found guilty and sentenced to nine years imprisonment.
In another two of these cases, both accused were acquitted by the jury.
There were two matters for the offence of Rape of a Child under 16 years. In one case, the accused was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment. The other accused who was indicted on four counts was also found unanimously guilty and sentenced to two life sentences which are to run consecutively.
During the October 2017 session of the Demerara Assizes, a total of 20 cases were heard by the High Court—two were for the offence of sexual activity with a child family member and three were for the offence of rape of a child under 16 years of age. In one of the two cases for the offence of sexual activity with a child family member, the accused, who was indicted on two counts, was sentenced to life imprisonment after the jury returned a unanimous verdict of guilty. In the other matter, the accused was indicted on three counts of the offence and was found guilty on all three counts by the jury. He was sentenced to a total of 65 years’ imprisonment. He will have to serve 50 years before becoming eligible for parole.
In the matter for the offence of rape of a child under 16 years and sexual activity with a child family member, the accused who was indicted on two counts, was acquitted by the jury which retuned with a majority verdict of 11 to one not guilty for rape of a child under 16 years and 10 to two not guilty for sexual activity with a child family member. In the other matter for two counts of rape of a child under 16 years, the accused was sentenced to life imprisonment on each count with a possibility of parole after serving 35 years imprisonment. The complainant in the other rape matter testified that she did not wish to proceed with the matter and the trial judge directed the jury to return a formal verdict of not guilty for the accused.
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