–seeks recourse in Appeal Court

FORTY-five-year-old Selwyn Lancaster, who is currently serving 15 years in prison for raping a six-year-old girl in 2018, and also engaging in sexual activity with her has filed an appeal to challenge his conviction and sentence.

On October 29, 2019, Lancaster was sentenced by Justice Simone Morris-Ramlall, at the Sexual Offenders Court at the High Court, for rape of a child under the age of 16 and sexual activity.

The first charge stated that on October 6, 2018, in Linden, he engaged in sexual penetration with a child under the age of 16, while the second alleges that on November 6, 2018, he engaged in sexual activity with said child by touching her vagina.

He was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment on the first charge, and seven for the second, with Justice Morris-Ramlall ordering that they run concurrently.

Lancaster’s attorneys, Gordon Gilhuys and Yondessa Welcome-Mercurius, have since moved to the Appeal Court to challenge their client’s conviction and sentence, on the grounds that (a) Justice Morris-Ramlall had made an error in summing up the evidence to the jury, and (b), that the trial judge had misdirected the jury when she proposed that she would not read all the evidence while summing up.
Further, Lancaster’s attorneys are arguing that the Judge’s ‘summing up’ was not balanced and did not find favour with the prosecution.