– Wharton and Cush to face new trial after hung jury

IN over 50 years as a journalist on the court beat in Guyana, yesterday was the first time I ever witnessed a jury in the High Court failing to agree on a verdict in a clear-cut case.

In the rape/felony matter the two accused in 2007, who were then teenagers, allegedly raped and murdered nine-year-old, Sade Stoby in one of the most gruesome and glaring cases, as far as the evidence was concerned.
So glaring was the evidence, that after the report about their disagreement was declared by the presiding juror, Justice Navindra Singh, looking disappointed, told both accused:
“Quite amazingly, the jury is unable to arrive at a verdict. You will be remanded to prison to await a new trial at the next possible sitting of the Assizes.”
The judge then told the jury to “return tomorrow for possible selection in another case” and then he hurriedly left the Bench.
The jury of six men and six women deliberated for over three hours before the presiding juror returned to announce the disagreement or hung jury.
In answer to the Registrar, the jury foreperson explained that in respect to the offence of murder in relation to the accused Wharton, they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
The presiding juror said that they had reached agreement in respect to Cush but, in attempting to explain, admitted that they had also failed to reach agreement in relation to Cush and the offence of murder.
According to the prosecution’s case as conducted by Mrs. Judith Mursalin, in association with DPP lawyer, Mr. Lloyd Mark Conway, the nine-year-old girl, Sade Stoby had left her parents’ home at 10 Field, Barnwell, North Mocha, Arcadia, East Bank Demerara for school at the Mocha Arcadia Primary.
According to the prosecution’s case, the accused allegedly took the girl to the bushes at Mocha where she was brutally raped and murdered.
Government’s Forensic Pathologist, Dr. Nehaul Singh, who performed a post-mortem on Sade’s body found bleeding to the front of the head and the muscle at the back of her neck and to the muscle at the middle of the chest between the 5th and 6th ribs.
He reported too that thick black mud was in her trachea and bronchi while the stomach was filled with the dark black mud. There was also blood in her vagina and her hymen was recently ruptured, the doctor declared.
The prosecution’s case was that the nine-year-old girl was raped and murdered during the course or furtherance of a felony – that is rape.
The accused had made confession statements admitting the crime which they subsequently denied and claimed that they were beaten by the police to sign the statements.

(By George Barclay)