– in surprised verdict
THE 19-year-old rape victim who claimed she was raped three times by her 31-year-old in-law, Carl Alleyne Wren, burst into tears at an Assize Court in Demerara yesterday, when an 11-member jury unanimously found the accused not guilty on all counts.
Presiding Judge, Justice Winston Patterson then discharged the accused by telling him that he was found not guilty and was free to leave the dock.
The girl, now 19, had told the judge and jury that she was 12 years old when the attacks were made on her by the accused, on three separate occasions, between 2003 and 2004.
Wren had pleaded not guilty and was being represented by Attorney-at-Law, Mr. Adrian Thompson.
The prosecution’s case, as led by Miss Teshana James-Lake, with Mrs. Judith Gildharie-Mursalin, is that the girl resided in an apartment where the accused is housed at the back of the same apartment.
She was living with her parents and other siblings while the accused was living with a woman who bore a child for him.
The accused, it is said, would from time to time call the girl to his home under the pretence that he wanted her to do an errand for him. On each occasion, he would rape her.
The girl said that during the month of October, 2003, she went over to the accused home because he had asked her to help him do something.
She added, “The accused is my cousin’s child father. I was then 12 years old. The accused called me over to his apartment because he wanted me to do something for him. When I turned up, he called me into his bedroom and showed me a pornographic magazine.
“At the time when he was showing me the magazine I was sitting on the bed. I told him that I did not want to see the photographs and I got off the bed and proceeded to leave the bedroom.
“As I was about to leave the bedroom, the accused grabbed me by my waist and pulled me back into the bedroom. He then pushed me on to the bed, took off my underwear and had sexual intercourse with me.  After he was finished, I went back to my apartment,” the victim had told the prosecutor, in her evidence in chief.
The jury deliberated for just over two hours before reaching the unanimous verdict of not guilty yesterday.