Judge to sum up rape case next week

The absence of seminal fluid and other forensic evidence were highlighted by defense counsel as closing arguments were made in the case in which a 33-year-old man is accused of raping a 73-year-old woman four years ago.

On the other hand, the prosecutor Senior Crown Counsel Krystal Delaney encouraged the jury to bear in mind the “consistent” evidence in the case.

Justice Pamela Beckles is expected to sum up the case next Tuesday before turning it over to the nine-member panel.

Attorney-at-law Lalu Hanuman pointed out the “uncertainties” in the evidence saying “If it don’t make sense it is because it isn’t true”. He pointed to the lack of forensic evidence in parts of the case including the absence of seminal fluid and he was critical of the investigating officers’ handling of the matter and the contradictions in the complaint’s evidence.

The lawyer admitted though that evidence showed signs of an assault but not rape.

The accused, in his recount of what happened on August 13, 2016, said the complainant attacked him while he was in the bathroom and in response he attacked her.

The injuries, Delaney outlined, included hyper-pigmentation, swelling and tenderness to the right eye, six centimetre and three centimetre lacerations to her chest, scratches to ear and cheek, injuries to fingers, bruises to the breast and opening of the vagina.

According to the prosecution, the complainant was watching the Olympics when the accused burst into her bedroom naked. The accused reportedly said: “I want some of that fat p…. you got there” to which the complainant replied “I could be your grandmother”.

“Both my grandmothers dead,” the accused allegedly said to the woman.

He then pushed her from her room to his and the two wrestled until she was “sweaty and tired”. The accused removed her pants and underwear and penetrated her as she “[cried] for murder”. At some point the complainant pulled on his penis and he cuffed, slapped and bit her until the rape ended. She ran next door and told her friend what occurred.

Delaney said the accused’s alleged statement to police was consistent with the complainant’s account. In the statement which he denied making, he recalled seeing the 73-year-old exit the bathroom naked and he said “Wow look at that big, fat ***, some of that for me tonight”.

The woman then told the accused she had “big sons older than him” and he told her “sex was around before me and you and nobody outside ain’t got to know”. According to the statement the woman offered him sex and they participated in the act before she started to push him off after “half hour”. The two then fought, according to him.

The prosecutor today asked the jury to dismiss Hanuman’s suggestion that the complainant was making up her story.

“Do you think [the complainant] is lying on this accused man and making this up, perpetuating a lie for the past four years, subjecting herself to talk about this in front of all of us, strangers?” Delaney asked.