Accused denies having sex with elderly woman

The 33-year-old man accused of raping a 73-year-old woman gave evidence from the witness stand today maintaining that he never had sex with the elderly woman nor was he sexually attracted to her, as he saw her as a “grandmother”.

In fact he said, the oldest person, he has had sexual intercourse with, was 33 years old.

The accused said he did not rape the elderly woman but simply fought with her after she interrupted his bathroom session on August 13, 2016, the day of the alleged incident.

He is on trial in the No. 5 Supreme Court before Justice Pamela Beckles and a nine-member jury where attorney-at-law Lalu Hanuman is defending him and Senior Crown Counsel Krystal Delaney is appearing for the Crown.

The now 37-year-old, denied the “fabricated” statement he claims police beat him into signing. In that statement, the accused allegedly said the woman offered him sex and told him to get “grease” which he applied before the act. It was after about half an hour that she pushed him off and they fought. During the fight he continued having sex with her until he ejaculated.

In his evidence, he recalled returning home around 1 a.m., went into the bathroom and was “on the toilet stooling” when the door was pushed open and he pushed it back. At that time only the 73-year-old was at home.

The accused said he again pushed back the bathroom door and said ‘I inside hey’ and the elderly woman said every time she want to use the bathroom I always using the bathroom. She then pushed the door with force this time and then scratched him across the face and neck.

“I cuff her in the face about three to four times then she fall back into the two-seater chair. I didn’t hit her anywhere else…she fell and hit her head on the fridge,” he recalled.

The accused said he proceeded to stand over her, hold her by the throat and told her to behave herself.

“She bite me on my hand and I bite her back on her finger. She said leave her alone and I left her and went into my bedroom,” he recalled

The next morning around 6/6:30 a.m, he said he went to Parish Land, Christ Church to sell coconuts, which is his weekend job. On weekdays he worked at the Crane Hotel.

As he was plying his trade he got a call from a cousin telling him about the rape report made by the woman.

Three days later when he went to work at the hotel, he told his boss about the incident and the police, who were looking for the accused, were then summoned.

The accused said officers Paul Adamson and Lisa Monroe-Small arrested him and took him to the Oistins Police Station. He said he told the officers the true version of events before they beat him.

“After I told dem that, they tell me ‘tell me wuh I want to hear’ because I is a foreigner and I come to disgrace Barbados and if I don’t tell dem wuh happen they would throw me in a well somewhere and kill me and nobody would know where me is,” he recalled.

He said officer Adamson then opened a drawer and retrieved a pink plastic bag, black ski mask and newspaper.

“Adamson said ‘tell me wuh I want to hear’ or he would kill me like how they kill de fella in the cell…and say he hang himself and nothing will come out of it because I am a foreigner.”

The accused further recalled the officer placing the ski mask over his face before putting the plastic bag around his head. The accused said he was hit in the head with a sprite bottle filled with water and he passed out for two or three minutes. The newspaper was wrapped around his wrists with handcuffs on them. All the while an officer was standing on his thighs.

He said the officers continued to pressure him and told him he had to sign what they wrote.

While being examined by his lawyer, the accused said the statement was signed under duress. He said the document was correct up to when he returned from Oistins and entered the house to go into the bathroom. However, he denied commenting on the size of the woman’s vagina and also denied asking her about sex.

“That’s a made-up story,” he said. He insisted that the injuries on the complainant were as a result of the fight between them.                                              

The accused recalled several encounters with the elderly woman including when she would enter the bathroom while he was showering. He said the woman pulled the shower curtain, held his penis and told him she wanted it “long time”. He then pulled away his penis and told the woman he was involved with his child’s mother. However, he could not recall that person’s last name when asked today.

He spoke of other incidents where the woman blamed him unfairly and gave away his food stuff.

“She tell me why she doing this to me is because she has a family member who wants a place to stay and that is the reason she trying to get me out the house,”

In cross- examination, the accused claimed that the woman was the “aggressive” one when he scratched her after coming into the bathroom.

“Your response was to punch her three to four times and she was the aggressive one?” the Senior Crown Counsel asked, also alluding to when the accused held the woman’s throat.

She then asked the accused how he was dressed after he got up off the toilet from “actively stooling” and proceeded to go on top of the woman.

He said his pants and underwear were off at the time and he was just wearing a shirt. He held her throat and the woman bit his hand and he bit her back. The accused said he only had two teeth at the time. He then asked her to behave herself and went into his bedroom.

The prosecutor queried when the accused cleaned his buttocks having gotten off the toilet to fight with the woman.

He said he went into his bedroom after, wiped himself and left the soiled toilet paper until morning.

The case continues tomorrow.