Published On:Friday, January 27, 2012

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Staff reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

THE Court of Appeal rejected the bail appeal by Bishop Randy Fraser because he failed to show any exceptional circumstances to justify being released on bond.

The Court released its detailed ruling yesterday on the rejection of bail to the convicted sex offender, who returns to the court in a month to appeal his conviction.

At the time of the hearing last December, appellate court president Justice Anita Allen said the reasons for the bail rejection would be released at a later date.

Yesterday, Justice Allen informed defence attorney Jiaram Mangra and Fraser they would be presented with a printed copy of their ruling.

According to the ruling by Justice Allen, Justices Stanley John and Abdulai Conteh, the court was not convinced Fraser and Jiaram Mangra presented any "exceptional circumstances" to justify the 54-year-old being granted bail, despite being satisfied by other arguments presented.

It read: "While we were satisfied that the applicant was of previously good character, that the offence of which he was convicted, although serious, was not such as would provide a powerful incentive to abscond, and that it was improbable that he would abscond given his connections to The Bahamas and the fulfilment of all his obligations under his previous grant of bail, we could not find any exceptional circumstances which drive us to the conclusion that the justice of the case required that the applicant be granted bail pending his appeal."

The document continued on to say that "indeed, in the absence of the applicant showing the decision of the magistrate's court was obviously in error, it must be treated by us as correct unless and until we find it to be wrong on appeal".

"Further, we felt justice could be achieve by expediting the hearing of the appeal rather than by the granting of bail."

This ruling came six weeks after announcing their decision at the end of Fraser's bail hearing. The senior pastor of Pilgrim Temple Baptist Church appeared before the appellate court on December 16 seeking to be granted bail pending the outcome of his appeal, which will be heard on February 27.

In November, he was convicted in Magistrate's Court of having sex with a minor between July 2005 and February 2006.

Prosecutors argued that he abused his position of trust by having sex with a girl he had agreed to counsel.

He was originally charged in the summer of 2006, but freed a year later after a mistrial. His retrial started in 2008.

After several delays, Deputy Chief Magistrate Carolita Bethell handed down the guilty verdict and sentenced Fraser to serve three years at Her Majesty's Prison.

At the bail hearing, Mangra was unable to persuade the justices that his client deserved to be freed pending the outcome of his appeal.