Fmr. Bishops’ High School teacher freed on one count of sexual activity with a minor

Feb 23, 2022 News

Kaieteur News – Former Bishops’ High School teacher, Coen Jackson has been acquitted of a sexual offence charge after a jury in the High Court found him not guilty on one count of sexual activity with a child under 18, by abusing a position of trust. Jackson was facing four counts of the offence.
The mixed panel of jurors could not however, reach a decision on the other three counts of the charge.

Coen Jackson

As such, Jackson will face another round of trial at the next sitting of the Demerara Criminal Assizes. During the trial which was conducted before Justice Priya Sewnarine-Beharry, the State’s case was represented by Prosecutor Muntaz Ali, in association with Nafeeza Baig and Latifah Elliot.
Attorneys- at- law, Nigel Hughes, Jerome Khan and Savannah Barnwell represented the accused.
Jackson had been accused of having a sexual relationship with the complainant—a female student—with whom he started communicating with privately in 2010.
According to the particulars of the case, the former school teacher had started messaging the student on the social media platform Facebook. The complainant claimed that she told the teacher his approach was inappropriate.
But after feeling neglected, she reached out to Jackson and this time, he invited her to his house. According to complainant that was when the sexual activity began with her teacher.
These events continued in March and April of 2011, whereby on different occasions during these months, the accused would invite his student to his home to perform sexual acts on him. The complainant was a student the Bishops’ High School while the accused was her teacher, whose responsibility was still to prepare her to write the CXC subjects, he taught, which were Economics and Business.
After six years, the complainant was in another relationship which caused her to realise that what happened to her was wrong and that she was being abused by her teacher.
The former student said that she felt she needed to bring the matter to light and report it, because she did not want it to happen to any other student.
Jackson in an unsworn statement to the court conceded that he did have a relationship with the complainant, however, he contends, this began while she was a student at the University of Guyana and he was doing his Master’s Degree and he asked her to proof read his thesis.