At Berbice Assizes

JUSTICE Winston Patterson aborted the rape trial at the Berbice Assizes on Wednesday after it was reported, to him, that the accused, sexagenarian Harold Captain nicknamed ‘Boy Boy’ had committed suicide.

Woman Police Corporal Margo Grosvenor, who made the report under oath, told the judge, in the presence of the mixed jury, that she was informed about it, at 06:30 h the same day, in a telephone call she received from the Officer-in-Charge of Number 51 Police Station.

Grosvenor, the Subordinate Officer at the Police Outpost in the New Amsterdam High Court, said Natasha Captain, daughter of the dead man, had spoken to him at 23:00h on Tuesday.

The surviving Captain occupied the upper flat of the two-storey building in which her father lived.

She said he was seen hanging, by a piece of polythene rope tied around his neck about 06:00h, from a genip tree in the back of their Brighton yard, at Corentyne, too.

Earlier, on instructions from the judge, the Court Marshal went outside and called for the accused thrice. On receiving no answer, he returned to the courtroom where Defence Counsel Rodwell Jugmohan admitted receiving the same information, that his client had taken his own life.

The virtual complainant, who was 10-years-old when the crime was allegedly committed, had concluded her evidence-in-chief on Tuesday and Jugmohan deferred cross-examination until he was fully briefed.

Captain, 65, was indicted for having carnal knowledge of the pre-teen in his house on October 5, 2004 and the girl, now 15, had recounted her ordeal, led by State Prosecutor Fabayo Azore.