Shayne Douglas Marshall had claimed it was the girl’s father who got her to accuse him of rape because he (Marshall) was sleeping with the man’s wife.
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However, a jury did not believe him and found he had raped the then eight-year-old six years ago. He is now on remand at Dodds Prison pending the compilation of a pre-sentencing report.
Marshall, of Rock Hall, St Philip, was on trial in the No. 5 Supreme Court accused of having sexual intercourse with a girl who was under the age of 14 – eight years old – and who was not his spouse between May 1 and June 30, 2019.
He was represented by attorneys Dennis Headley and Shenelle Wharton, while Senior State Counsel Kevin Forde and State Counsel Maya Kellman prosecuted.
The nine-member jury took about two hours to come to its unanimous decision.
Justice Pamela Beckles ordered a pre-sentencing report and remanded Marshall, who has two previous convictions, to Dodds. He will reappear on January 28 next year.
The court had heard from the now 13-year-old sister of the complainant who said she peeped through a hole in the door and saw Marshall “between” her sister’s legs.
The teenaged witness said she was outside in the garden with her siblings when her sister went inside Marshall’s house. She knew him as ‘Gad Man’, she said.
She said she became curious and went inside as well, and she looked through
a hole in the door. “I witnessed ‘Gad Man’ with my sister on the bed in his house. I saw my sister’s legs open and ‘Gad Man’ was between them.”
She said he had on his shirt but no pants or underwear.
The witness testified she called her brother, who was still in the garden, to peep through the hole in the door. “My brother then shouted and he said, ‘You, what you doing?’ ‘Gad Man’ then moved. He got up off the bed,” she said. It was then, she continued, that she could see her sister was not wearing any pants or underwear. However, in his defence from the dock, Marshall said the girl’s father made her fabricate the story because he was having sex with the father’s wife.
“This is how this whole thing started. [The father] found out that me and [the woman] were having sex. [The woman] was pregnant all along,” he read.
[The woman] gave me and the people in the district the impression that she was pregnant for me. [The girl’s father] became angry about this and he stopped speaking to me. [The complainant] did not take off any of her clothes or anything like that.
“I did not take off my clothes in front of [the complainant]. I was not with [the complainant] alone,” he said. “I never once think about raping somebody.” (HLE)
