The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

THE Court of Appeal has set a substantive hearing date for a man challenging a jury’s verdict that he raped a teenage girl ten times.

A status hearing was held in the appellate court yesterday when Jade Fowler, of Munroe and Associates, confirmed to appellate President Justice Anita Allen that the firm of Wayne Munroe, QC, had received notice of appointment as the convicted man’s counsel for the appeal of the guilty verdict in the November-December 2010 sexual assault case.

The case was adjourned to September 3 for a substantive hearing.

At trial in the Supreme Court in February 2014, the victim, now an adult, told a nine-member jury that Dwayne Gordon had “grinded” her, slang for having sex, some ten times. Armed with a knife, she said, he threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone.

Gordon denied the charges. His trial lawyer Devard Williams suggested to the victim that she was making up the complaints because she was a troubled girl who was “fast” and had a boyfriend of her own.

The complainant denied fabricating the complaints. She said the accused, who reportedly owned up to what he had done, tried to get her to drop the case through his lawyer, who had called her after charges had been brought against him.

The jury went on to unanimously convict the man of the charge he faced and trial judge Justice Indra Charles sentenced him to 25 years in prison.