By LAMECH JOHNSON
Tribune Staff Reporter
ljohnson@tribunemedia.net
PROCEEDINGS have been discontinued against a man who was awaiting trial concerning the alleged sexual assault of a senior citizen in 2001 on a Family Island.
The move by the Crown on Tuesday came more than 13 years after 56-year-old Lindy Jonas Edwards was formally arraigned in the Supreme Court on a rape charge concerning the February 23, 2001 incident where the alleged victim was 64 at the time.
Edwards, a lifeguard who denied the charge when formally arraigned in May 2003, could not be found up to yesterday when the matter was called before Senior Justice Stephen Isaacs resulting in prosecutor Darell Taylor presenting the nolle prosequi (no prosecution order).
The Office of the Attorney General, by law, could bring the case against him again at any time in the Supreme Court, but it is unlikely.
The alleged sexual assault occurred around 8pm at the victim’s residence, where she lived alone.
The woman told police that the man came to her residence and asked her to read a letter for him, which she did.
They talked for sometime about his situation at his job before the accused allegedly asked her if she had a cutlass because he’d seen something crawl into the dining room area.
The woman asked him if it was a snake and he said yes.
She reportedly gave him a can of Baygon and sprayed the area in an attempt to get the creature to come out of hiding to no avail.
The woman told police that she called a female friend and asked if she could stay by her for the night, as she was afraid of snakes.
However, after the end of her telephone conversation, the man allegedly told her that she only needed good loving.
She told him to leave the house but he refused, picking up the cutlass and threatening to use it if necessary and proceeding to grab the front of her dress while demanding that she give in to his sexual advances.
She told police that the man threw her onto her bed, and during their struggle, she grabbed his crotch and bit him on his hand.
The assailant struck her with the cutlass on her arm before trying to choke her.
They fell on the ground and he pulled her underwear down before inserting his finger into her vagina, drawing blood, it was alleged.
The complainant grabbed a nearby piece of iron and struck him in the head and fled the home to seek help.
She looked back and saw that the assailant fled in the opposite direction, it was claimed.
When interviewed by police, the accused told officers that the woman attacked him with the cutlass when he said he would go home after they didn’t find whatever had crawled into the dining area.
Section four of the Sexual Offences Act, Chapter 99 notes that sexual intercourse includes “(a) sexual connection occasioned by any degree of penetration of the vagina of any person or anus of any person, or by the stimulation of the vulva of any person or anus of any person, by or with - (i) any part of the body of another person; or (ii) any object used by another person, except where the penetration or stimulation is carried out for proper medical purposes; and (b) sexual connection occasioned by the introduction of any part of the penis of any person into the mouth of another person, and any reference in this Act to the act of having sexual intercourse includes a reference to any stage or continuation of that act.”
A conviction for rape carries up to life imprisonment.
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