JUSTICE Roxanne George had directed a jury some days ago to set free 16-year old Kenneth Gilbert on a charge of carnal Knowledge of a five-year-old girl.
But she was shocked yesterday when the jury also found Gilbert not guilty of indecently assaulting the five year old victim. Following the jury’s verdict of not guilty of indecent assault committed on the girl on June 8, 2006,  Justice George said “ this is a surprise verdict “.
Noting that the accused would still have to go back to  prison where  he is to  complete serving a term of 18 months imprisonment for  ‘escaping from lawful custody’ , the judge told  the freed man , ‘that offence will take you back from where  you came from.”
The accused left the dock in his blue pants and white shirt, freed of both carnal knowledge and indecent assault, but was escorted back to prison, where,  according to his counsel, Mr. George Thomas, he will have a short term  to serve, to end his prison term for  escaping from  lawful custody.
The facts of the case disclosed that a mother had reported to the  police that  on the day in question she had seen the accused with his  pants down , slipping over a chair where her five year old daughter was lying.
She also noticed that her daughter’s underwear was not in place.  She examined the girl and noticed a whitish substance on her legs.  So she took the girl and the accused to the police where she made a report.
The accused denied that he had committed carnal knowledge with the girl and told the Police, “I only pumped.”
The accused was charged with having carnal knowledge of the girl and indecently assaulting her.
The accused, who was 16 years at the time of the offence, was committed to stand trial and indicted.
But at the jury trial, the girl, who is now nearing 11, told the judge and jury that she could not remember anything.  She said that she does not even know the boy.
Evidence disclosed that the girl was taken to the doctor and her hymen was found to be intact.
As a consequence of this evidence, defence counsel George Thomas and James Bond made no-case submissions  in the absence of the jury. The result was that the judge directed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty in relation to the accused for the carnal knowledge offence, but called on him for a defence to the offence of indecent assault.
The prosecutors in the matter were Miss Konyo Sandiford and Miss Prithima Kissoon.