Latest update November 5th, 2024 1:00 AM
Appeal Court tells convicted rapist ‘Go back and serve your sentence’
Convicted rapist: Calvin Ramcharran.
Kaieteur News – The Court of the Appeal yesterday rejected a request from convicted rapist, Calvin Ramcharran, essentially telling him to go back to serving his 23- year jail sentence.
The ruling was delivered by Chancellor of the Judiciary, Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards, at the Appeal Court in Kingston. In dismissing the appeal, Justice Cummings-Edwards noted that the Court found that Ramcharran’s case had no merit as it relates to the grounds of appeal. According to the Chancellor, the Court disagreed with arguments that Ramcharran’s sentence was severe in all circumstances.
“The Court will only interfere if a sentence is found to be manifestly excessive or passed on the wrong principles,” Justice Cummings-Edwards said, adding that the requisite directions were given to the jury by the trial judge. She noted that “the jury was properly assisted in coming to their verdict.”
In 2015, Ramcharran was sentenced by Justice Jo Ann Barlow, for rape and assault causing actual bodily harm committed on a 20-year-old woman. He was sentenced to 23 years on the rape charge, and four years on the assault charge. Back then, the trial judge ordered that the two sentences are to be served concurrently.
Even after he was sentenced, Ramcharran maintained that he was innocent of the crime which according to the facts presented in court, revealed that the young woman was attacked and raped at a party while she was out with some friends. The Court heard that the victim was making her way to the washroom, when she was approached by Ramcharran, who asked her if she was “doing business.”
When the young woman replied, “no,” Ramcharran grabbed her hands and a fight ensued between them during which he stripped her clothes, choked, punched and hit her several times to the head with a bottle while dragging her to the back of an unfinished building, where he forcefully penetrated her.
After the attack, Ramcharran reportedly offered the woman $65,000 and instructed her to meet him on the road in a car. Instead, the victim was able to escape and get help from persons nearby to seek medical attention.
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