Prosecution, defence present final arguments in incest trial

Presenting their closing arguments in the trial of a father accused of having unlawful sexual intercourse with his daughter, the prosecution and the defence urged the jury to consider the evidence presented closely before reaching a verdict.

The father has been accused of two counts of incest with his daughter, then under the age of 14, between 2005 and 2011.

Before the nine-member jury and Justice Randall Worrell in Supreme Court No. 2 on Thursday,  Principal State Counsel Olivia Davis, who is prosecuting the matter along with State Counsel Eleazar Williams, told the jury to consider the testimony of the doctor who examined the virtual complainant after she reported her father to the police, and said that the absence of her hymen was because her father was having sex with her over the seven years she had lived with him.

She said the virtual complainant had admitted to avoiding being at home, preferring school, church and being outside with friends to get away from her father.

Davis urged the jury to consider the testimony of the virtual complainant, who asked what she would have to gain from lying about what had happened to her.

The State Counsel also noted that the accused man had never raised the question of his paternity when he was ordered to pay child maintenance or when he filed for custody, because “he knows that she is his daughter”.

However, defence attorney Alvan Babb, who along with Veronica McFarlane is representing the accused father, insisted that the prosecution had failed to prove that the daughter was indeed his biological child and that he did have sex with her.

“He is charged with incest. Not sexual assault, not having sex with a minor, and incest calls for a specific set of circumstances which must be proved by the prosecution beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said.

Babb pointed to the doctor’s testimony that a hymen can be broken without sexual penetration and contended that the girl had never reported the incidents to anyone before the night in question because they had never happened.

He also pointed out that when the accused man took the child to a doctor as directed by the Child Care Board in 2011, they never reached out to him again.

The matter has been adjourned until next week.