A security guard who was convicted for the 2015 rape of a 21-year-old woman while on duty in Phoenix Vista, St Catherine lost his appeal of his 18-year sentence last Friday.

The man, who was in May 2018 sentenced, with the stipulation that he serve 12 years before being eligible for parole, filed an appeal a month later. That application was, however, refused.

In a subsequent appeal filed in 2021, the convicted man argued, among other things, that the jury had been misdirected by the judge and that the sentence was “manifestly excessive”.

The court, in dismissing the appeal, said, in its view, “no pressure was exerted on the jury to return a unanimous verdict and as such, there was no misdirection by the learned judge”. It, however, said there was merit in the argument regarding the sentence, given missteps by the trial judge who did “no mathematical computation to take account of the mitigating and aggravating factors” and her treatment of the convicted man’s lack of remorse as an aggravating factor. According to the Appeal Court, “the applicant was entitled to maintain his innocence”.

“It is to be noted that it has been stated by this court that caution should be exercised when treating with the absence of remorse as an aggravating factor,” it said further. The court said in light of those missteps by the learned judge it was duty-bound to consider the issue of sentence afresh.

But even after doing so, the Appeal Court resolved that the sentence imposed “was not manifestly excessive and, as such, ought not to be disturbed”.

“We therefore make the following orders: the application for permission to appeal conviction is refused… the appeal against sentence is dismissed and the sentence 18 years’ imprisonment with the stipulation that the applicant serves a period of 12 years before being eligible for parole, imposed on 25 May 2018, is affirmed. The sentence is reckoned to have commenced on 25 May 2018, the date when it was imposed,” the Appeal Court ordered.

According to the evidence of the then 21-year-old woman in question, in 2015 she had accompanied another female to a house in the community. While on the way they met the convicted man and his work colleague who were travelling in a marked security vehicle.

She said the incident happened during an interaction between herself and the later-convicted man, who was employed to a private security company, after he and his colleague assisted them to transport some items.

According to the complainant, the man forced himself on her after she refused to kiss him following a prolonged conversation in the company vehicle. She managed to get away from him by telling him she wanted to urinate before running to hide in a church yard. The matter was subsequently reported to the police.

But the convicted man, who is married, said while he had kissed the woman she did not protest. He, however, denied raping her. The work colleague of the convicted man, who was one of the witnesses called, however told the court that when he asked him if he had engaged in sexual activity with the young woman his crass response indicated that he had.

The Appeal Court, in its findings on Friday, said “the elements required to prove rape were present”, adding that “it was open to the jury to convict the applicant of that offence if they accepted the complainant’s evidence”.

In the meantime, in noting that the convicted man had been a security guard, the court said “in light of his occupation, the violation of the complainant should not have been on his radar at all”.