BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - A concerted effort seems to have been made by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to dispose of sexual matters which constituted more than 40 percent of the docketed cases for the most recent criminal assizes.
Fifty-six cases, 23 of which are sexual matters, were listed for hearing during the January 2010 Criminal Assizes which concluded on Tuesday (Mar. 30). These included rape, indecent assault and unlawful carnal knowledge.
Fifteen of those cases were successfully disposed of and 10 of them were of a sexual nature.
Shawn Natta and Trevis Hodge were jointly charged with a July 9, 2009 incident of burglary and indecent assault and were convicted of the offences. Natta was sentenced to four years imprisonment and Hodge was sentenced to three years at Her Majesty’s Prison. These sentences, however, were suspended for a three-year period.
Henry Alfred Williams, who was charged with a September 12, 2009 offence of rape and wounding with intent, was convicted of the offences and sentenced to serve 10 years on the first count and five years on the second.
A five-year term of imprisonment is to be served by Vernon Lake as punishment for his involvement in an “indecent assault” incident which transpired on July 27, 2008.
Former police officer Kevin Jones of Conaree was thrown in the slammer to spend the next 10 years, after he was unanimously convicted of raping an adult female on the night of December 28, 2007.
Convicted of an “unlawful carnal knowledge” offence, Elvis James was sentenced to serve four years at Her Majesty’s Prison.
The respective cases of Dion Taylor and Cecil Charles, who were charged for separate incidents of “unlawful carnal knowledge”, had their cases discontinued while Charles Phillip Belle was convicted an April 1, 2006 offence of “indecent assault” and handed a three-year suspended sentence.
At the close of the January 2010 Criminal Assizes, His Lordship Justice Francis Belle stressed that there is an urgent need for the male population in the Federation to “examine itself” as it relates to the continued disrespect exhibited towards the opposite sex.
While the court managed to dispose of a considerable number of “sexual matters”, the majority of matters docketed for trial during the January 2010 Criminal Assizes were traversed and are expected to be heard during the May 2010 Criminal Assizes, tentatively scheduled to commence on May 11.
