CONVICTED rapist, Calvin Ramcharran, had his 23-year prison sentence reduced to 12 years by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) on Friday.

In 2015, a 12-member jury had found the 28-year-old guilty of the rape and brutal assault of a woman at a party in Soesdyke, East Bank Demerara (EBD) on July 22, 2012.

At the time of his conviction in the Demerara High Court, then trial judge, Justice Jo-Ann Barlow, had sentenced him to 23 years imprisonment for the rape, and three for the assault, but stipulated that the sentences were to be run concurrently.

Obviously miffed by the judge’s decision, Ramcharran approached the Guyana’s Court of Appeal (CoA) to have his conviction and sentence either set aside or overturned.

However, in January 2021, the Court of Appeal dismissed the matter, and instead upheld both the conviction and the sentence.

Dissatisfied with the decision of the appeal tribunal, Ramcharran subsequently moved to the CCJ. However, the Trinidad-based court which is Guyana’s final appellate court, only allowed Ramcharran to appeal his sentence.

Justices Maureen Rajnauth-Lee, Winston Anderson, Andrew Burgess, Peter Jamadar, and Denys Barrow were the presiding judges in the CCJ matter. Ramcharran was represented by attorney-at-law Nigel Hughes.

In finding that the rape sentence was manifestly excessive, the CCJ found that the trial judge failed to hold a separate sentencing hearing to take a victim impact statement or to obtain mental health or psychological assessments.

Additionally, the CCJ found that the trial judge failed to give reasons for her sentencing.

According to the CCJ, because the trial judge failed to give her reason for the sentencing, the CoA could only infer what the trial judge considered in arriving at the sentences imposed.

“The court found that the Court of Appeal, in reviewing the trial judge’s sentence, erred in failing to follow the comprehensive guidelines for trial judges in rape cases, in its earlier decision of Linton Pompey vs the DPP,” the CCJ said.

The CCJ said that the CoA failed to apply the proper sentencing principles and objectives, to determine the issue raised by the appeal, that is, whether the sentences were manifestly excessive or wrong in principle.

The CCJ, after considering the aggravating and mitigating factors in Ramcharran’s case imposed a sentence of 12 years’ imprisonment. However, the court affirmed his three-year sentence for assault causing actual bodily harm, which is to be served concurrently.

Ramcharran committed the offences on July 22, 2012.

The Guyana Chronicle had reported that Ramcharran had not only ‘tailed’ the young woman when she left the event to use the washroom facility, but had also asked her whether she was “doing business.”

It was, reportedly, her negative response that prompted him to do what he did.