A St Michael man swore on his “mother’s grave” that he never indecently assaulted a nine-year-old girl in 2021.
“I never touched (the complainant’s) nipples; I never touched her on the bottom; I never put my finger in her vagina. I swear on my mother’s grave,” he said.
Giving an unsworn statement from the dock, the 38-year-old man told the nine-member jury in Supreme Court No. 4A that on the night of June 15, 2021, his girlfriend had sent two of her children and her niece to bed, while he, his girlfriend, his brother and another child sat in the front house.
During the night, he turned on the light several times and checked on the three children in the bedroom but they were not sleeping. He said the other child that was in the front house started to get agitated and needed to sleep. Again, he checked on the children, who were pretending to be asleep and this time, he pulled on their toes. After he left the room and turned off the light, his girlfriend took the other child to bed. He remained in the front with his brother, went into his bedroom to get ready for work the next day and went into the shower when the lights dimmed. After coming out, he checked to see if anything had been damaged, told his girlfriend he was going to bed and went to sleep.
Earlier in the trial, the jury heard an extract from the medical journal written by the late Dr Ross Herbert who has examined the complainant after the alleged incident.
He found “a tear in the posterior fourchette involving the introitus with mild tenderness”. Consultant at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Dr Anne-Marie Cruickshank who read Dr Herbert’s notes, explained that this meant that there was a tear of the membrane along the entrance of the girl’s vagina which could be caused by any force into the vagina.
On Thursday, Principal State Counsel Joyann Catwell and the accused’s attorneys, Simon Clarke and Dr Lenda Blackman, gave their closing statements.
Justice Wanda Blair was expected to give her summation on Friday, before turning the case over to the jury.
