Woman recounts rape by two men in believed “set-up”

The complainant in a rape trial told the jury in the No. 5 Supreme Court that she was at the home of an acquaintance when Matthew Kevin Lamonte Cumberbatch and Ricardo Alexander Headley held her down and forced themselves on her.

Cumberbatch, of Yearwood Road, Black Rock, St Michael, and Headley of Wavell Avenue, also in Black Rock, are charged with having sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old female without her consent, knowing she did not consent or was reckless as to whether she consented, on April 1, 2014.

Speaking from the witness stand, the now 27-year-old woman testified that she had met a female on a bus the month before the incident and they would engage in small talk whenever they saw each other. The female gave directions to her home and she went there to lime outside.

On April 1, she went to the girl’s home again and about five other people were there. Around 6 p.m., she took two pulls of a spliff the female had lit and then they headed into a bedroom to talk. The female left the bedroom at one point and about two minutes later, someone came in. Initially, she thought it was her acquaintance returning, but it was Headley.

She said she sat up on the bed, but Headley pushed her back down and tried to get on top of her. Cumberbatch then entered the room. The complainant said Headley was trying to get her to perform oral sex on him, while Cumberbatch was trying to have “sex sex” with her as she struggled to push them off. She also recalled telling them to stop and “No, I ain’t bout this”.

The complainant tearfully recalled that throughout the encounter, she was thinking that her parents did not know where she was.

She eventually gave in as “it was all these people against my one”, but told Principal State Counsel Olivia Davis, who is prosecuting the case with State Counsel Eleazar Williams, that she had not given either man consent to have sex with her.

The complainant stated that as the men were raping her, she heard her female acquaintance call for Cumberbatch and both men stopped and left the room. She then put back on her clothes, another man entered the room and she left. The female acquaintance then walked her through a track.

The complainant said she decided she was not going to go home as she knew her mother would immediately know that something was wrong, so instead she headed to her boyfriend’s house.

During cross-examination by defence attorney Rita Evans who, along with counsels Ensley Grainger and Jamila Griffin, represents Cumberbatch, the complainant said she is no longer friends with the female as she believed the incident had been “a set-up”.

Attorneys Marlon Gordon and Jeremy Bowen represent Headley.

Madam Justice Pamela Beckles is presiding.