Man cleared of historic rapes and indecent assaults

Wednesday 10 July 2019

A 34-year-old man accused of raping and indecently assaulting a young girl over a five year period at the turn of the century, has been acquitted of all nine charges he faced.

It had been claimed the man had taken advantage of her, possibly more than 30 times, when they were at a house together between 1999 and 2004. At that time, he was an older teenager, while she was a pre-teen.

He was also accused of another assault in 2016, when both parties were adults, following a wedding they both attended at Castle Cornet.

But after an eight day trial, where a multitude of witnesses turned out to give evidence, the Royal Court has unanimously found the defendant not guilty of all nine charges. 

This morning, Judge Russell Finch summarised the entire case, which last week even included a visit to a site which the complainant alleged one of the rapes had taken place at.

The court had also previously heard accounts of numerous interviews the woman has done with police over the last decade. The first of those interviews was in 2009 when she was 18. She had reported her claims to Guernsey Police, but following the interview she decided not to pursue a criminal complaint.

When the court compared those interviews to more recent ones she recorded after formally making a complaint, and also the live evidence she gave, the Jurats found there were several inconsistencies.

Advocate Peter Ferbrache successfully made the case that his client was being falsely accused of these crimes. 

In his closing speech yesterday, Advocate Peter Ferbrache on behalf of the defence said the evidence was "overwhelmingly" against the complainant, making it clear she was lying. 

One example he gave, was how four of the five people with the complainant and the defendant on the night of the more recent 2016 assault agreed with the man's account, and said it was impossible that they would have not noticed the assault taking place.

Jurats are compelled to only convict people when they are 'beyond all reasonable doubt'. Following an hour and a half of deliberations, the defendant was cleared of all nine charges.

To read more about the case, the charges the man was facing, and what the prosecution and defence said in their closing statements yesterday, click here.