Older woman gives evidence in rape trial

The 16-year-old girl, who was allegedly raped by a police constable, said the officer asked her not to go to police because he could “get lock up for statutory rape [and] go to prison” and she would be sent off to live in a “home”.

This was contained in the statement of the girl’s grandmother who said she could not recall much of the same statement. She was the last witness in the trial of Constable Jason Andre Callender.

Callender of 6th Avenue, Durant’s Village, St James denies that he had sexual intercourse with the girl between June 1 and October 7, 2010 without her consent and also denies committing an act of serious indecency against her between October 6 and 7, 2010. Prosecutor Keith Robertson appeared for the Crown today while Samuel Legay continues to represent Callender.

The grandmother read from the 10-year-old statement after she said she could not remember much of what she wrote.

“I remember giving a statement but I don’t remember when it was and I can’t remember what went on now,” she said in relation to the statement written in October 2010.

The “little” she recalled was that her granddaughter “get rape by some policeman fella”.

“I don’t remember a lot of things now, I don’t want to tell lies…God don’t like liars, I want God to love me,” she said.

The 70-year-old was eventually allowed to read from the statement after Legay objected numerous times. The lawyer argued that Robertson did not lay the correct “foundation” before the statement was put to the witness.

After she was allowed to read over the statement, she addressed the court.

“I remember some of this but I do not remember all of this. I only remember when [my granddaughter] said she got raped by this policeman fella Jason….This thing hey knotting up my head,” she said.

In August 2010, the 16-year-old’s older sister told the grandmother that the teenager moved in with her and boyfriend Jason. The older sister said she eventually moved out but told her younger sibling to stay until she came back for her. Sometime later, the virtual complainant went to her grandmother and told her she had something to tell her.

“She told me that Jason had raped her, When she told me so I felt so badly for her because I knew that Jason was [the older sister’s] boyfriend and that he was a policeman.”

The grandmother then questioned why she took so long to come to her.

“She told me that he [Jason] had told her that she was 16 and he can get lock up for statutory rape and if she went to the police that he would go to prison and she would be sent to live in a home and if she thought she had all the cards, he had the trump card,” the statement said.

According to the grandmother’s statement, the girl also said that Jason told her that “if she was going to the police she would had to gone every since”.

The elderly woman said her granddaughter seemed afraid of Jason and had puffy eyes “as though she had not slept in a long time”. She told her youngest granddaughter not to go back to the house with the cop. She then called and told the elder sister about the rape claims and that sister came and took the complainant back to the house to retrieve clothes.

Under cross examination by Legay, the grandmother said she never visited the house where Jason lived and he never came to her home. “I don’t know Jason Sir,” she said in response to the lawyer.

She also agreed with Legay that all the information she read was given to her by her two granddaughters.

The Crown closed its case today and the trial will continue tomorrow at 9:15 a.m in the No. 5A Supreme Court where Justice Christopher Birch presides.