THE Appeal Court on Friday, in outlining its reasons for refusing to disturb the conviction of a St Elizabeth higgler for raping a teenaged girl in 2013, said his 12 previous convictions ranging from dishonesty to personal assault show that he is a habitual criminal.

The man — who was in 2015 convicted of the offence of rape in the Saint Elizabeth Circuit Court after trial before a judge and jury, and who was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment at hard labour — had appealed his sentence and conviction.

The Appeal Court in December last year, after hearing the matter, refused the application to appeal the conviction but granted the appeal against the sentence, promising to give its reasons later.

In outlining those reasons on Friday the court, in noting the man’s 12 previous convictions which involved breaches of the Larceny Act, said, “we found that 12 is a high number for convictions ranging from dishonesty to personal assault. He can, therefore, be deemed recidivist. Furthermore, he was convicted and is currently incarcerated for a prevalent offence”.

In noting that the current conviction is considered more serious as it involves violence to the person and is an offence which now attracts a statutory minimum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment, the Appeal Court said the trial judge’s summation and treatment of the identification evidence was, “by no means inadequate and therefore could not be impugned”.

“Further, it cannot be fairly said that — when taken in its totality — the quality of the identification evidence was ‘palpably tenuous and fragile’ and therefore the verdict of guilty returned by the jury resulted in a miscarriage of justice. For those reasons, the conviction should stand,” the Appeal Court stated.

However, while declaring that it had found no basis upon which the sentence can be said to be manifestly excessive, the Appeal Court said in the circumstances the man was, “nonetheless entitled to be accorded full credit for the time he was in custody pending his trial and sentencing”.

“We, accordingly, set aside the sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment imposed by the learned trial judge. After crediting the applicant with the one year, nine months, and 14 days he was in pre-trial remand, the recalculated sentence was 18 years, two months, and 16 days’ imprisonment at hard labour,” the court ruled.

The case for the prosecution was that on the night of April 2, 2013 the complainant, a then 15-year-old girl, was heading home, walking on the road from Lititz to Brinkley in the parish. While on her way she noticed two men standing in an escallion garden adjoining the roadway where she was walking. One of the men called to her but she ignored him. According to the teen, she saw her would-be attacker clearly, knew his name, and had seen him before selling sweet peppers in Junction, St Elizabeth. She said when she got some distance away from the men she was grabbed from behind.

According to the teen, while she struggled with the person she noticed, with the aid of another streetlight, that it was the applicant. Despite her resistance she said he managed to pull off her clothing, wrestled her to the ground, and raped her. The teen, who continued to fight, eventually managed to escape and ran naked to a nearby home to seek refuge, with the man in pursuit. She was assisted to the police station where she made a report. She identified her attacker during an identification parade conducted at a later date.

The higgler, in his own defence during the trial, made an unsworn statement denying any involvement in the attack. He claimed that he, on the night in question, was on his way home after selling in Junction when he stopped at a shop near to his home for half-hour and watched the news on television. He said after that he headed home and was not at any time in an escallion garden or followed anyone. He further denied grabbing and raping the young girl.