KEVON FELMINE

kevon23@guardian.co.tt

A farmer charged with rap­ing an 11-year-old girl 13 years ago won his free­dom last Thurs­day, when a ju­ry found him not guilty at the Supreme Court.
It took the ju­ry of five men and four women two hours to re­turn with a unan­i­mous ver­dict at the court.

Jus­tice Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds then in­formed Gar­cia that he was free to go.  

Gar­cia, 44, was ac­cused of rap­ing a for­mer girl­friend’s younger rel­a­tive at his home in Siparia on De­cem­ber 14, 2009. The tri­al be­gan on March 6. 
The pros­e­cu­tion’s main wit­ness, the al­leged vic­tim, who now lives in the Unit­ed States, tes­ti­fied vir­tu­al­ly. She told the court that in March 2009, her moth­er, who had been in the USA re­ceiv­ing can­cer treat­ment, re­turned to Trinidad to live.
They went to live with her rel­a­tive and Gar­cia in their two-bed­room apart­ment in a fam­i­ly home.

Al­though her moth­er died in Ju­ly that year, the girl con­tin­ued liv­ing there. The girl de­tailed how she lay on her bed around mid­day when Gar­cia en­tered the room. She claimed that Gar­cia put his hand over her mouth, told her to hush, re­moved their cloth­ing and raped her. Dur­ing that time, she told him to stop and tried to push him off. 

The wit­ness said Gar­cia told her not to tell any­one when he fin­ished. 
The wit­ness said she then dressed and went to a friend’s home a few hous­es away. She went home lat­er that day when she saw her sis­ter re­turn home.
Un­der cross-ex­am­i­na­tion by Gar­cia’s at­tor­ney, Kevin Rati­ram, the wit­ness said she did not tell the sis­ter about the rape. She said her sis­ter was preg­nant for Gar­cia and she did not want to ru­in things for her.

The wit­ness fur­ther tes­ti­fied that Gar­cia was rough dur­ing the rape, and it was painful, but she did not sus­tain vagi­nal bleed­ing or ex­ter­nal in­juries.

She tes­ti­fied that on Jan­u­ary 18, 2010, she told two friends and a teacher what hap­pened. 

Tes­ti­fy­ing for the pros­e­cu­tion, led by State at­tor­neys Nor­ma Pe­ters and Keisha Bap­tiste-Trot­man, po­lice In­spec­tor Shelly-Ann Reid said that on Jan­u­ary 18, 2010, she re­ceived a re­port from the girl that Gar­cia had sex with her on De­cem­ber 14. Reid took the girl to Dr Gan­ga Bha­gi­rathee for an ex­am­i­na­tion. Bha­gi­rathee’s med­ical re­port stat­ed that he found the girl’s hy­men present, and there were healed lac­er­a­tions to the hy­men in the 12 o’clock, 3 o’clock, 6’o clock and 9 o’clock po­si­tions prob­a­bly caused by pen­e­tra­tion.

Reid al­so stat­ed that on April 14, 2010, Gar­cia went to the Siparia Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment, where she told him of the re­port and cau­tioned him.

She said Gar­cia replied, “That nev­er hap­pened.” 

She charged Gar­cia on June 24, 2010.

In his de­fence, Gar­cia tes­ti­fied that in De­cem­ber 2009, he was a bar­ber who car­ried out house calls. He would leave for work around 8 am-9 am and re­turn home around 3 pm-4 pm be­tween Mon­day and Thurs­day. 
Since the girl al­leged that the rape oc­curred on a Mon­day at mid­day, he said he could not have been at the house at the al­leged time.

Gar­cia fur­ther stat­ed that he had reg­u­lar dis­putes with one of the girl’s rel­a­tive, who lived up­stairs, about his con­tri­bu­tion to house main­te­nance. He said there was an agree­ment to share the elec­tric­i­ty and wa­ter bills among oc­cu­pants, so he re­fused to pay any oth­er cost.

It led to the rel­a­tive reg­u­lar­ly abus­ing him and de­mand­ing he left the house.

Gar­cia sug­gest­ed the girl fab­ri­cat­ed the rape claim to get him out of the house. 
Sum­ming up the case, Rati­ram told the ju­ry it was un­re­al­is­tic that the al­leged rape, as de­scribed by the girl, could have oc­curred, yet the hy­men re­mained in­tact and there no vagi­nal bleed­ing or ex­ter­nal in­juries to her body.