SHATTERING the hopes of Ray Thomas to be reinstated into society sooner than the court so deemed, Chancellor of the Judiciary Yonette Cummings-Edwards, Appellate Justice Rishi Persaud and additional judge from the High Court, James Bovell-Drakes denied Thomas’s challenge on Thursday morning.

The 49-year-old man of Laing Avenue, Georgetown was sentenced in 2015 to 18 years imprisonment for raping an eight-year-old girl. The convicted man had been unanimously found guilty by a 12-member jury.

Particulars of the offence state that Thomas sexually penetrated the eight year-old girl’s vagina with his fingers during the month of February, 2012, an offence that he subsequently denied committing.

Represented by Attorney George Thomas, the legal arguments presented contended that the sentence imposed was too extreme for the crime and that the trial judge erred in principle.
However, after in-chamber deliberations, the judges disagreed with the appellant’s contentions.

Justice Cummings-Edwards said that they did not find that trial judge Dawn Gregory erred in principle when sentencing Thomas.
In fact, citing case law, Justice Cummings-Edwards highlighted that sentences can serve as a deterrent to potential committers of such crimes. As such, the Judges said that they were unable to find that the sentence was excessive.

On that note, the appeal was dismissed and Thomas will have to serve his jail time.
After the judges denied his appeal, Thomas’s elderly mother broke down in the court room as she longed to have her son with her again.