Court affirms 40-year sentence for rape

The Appeal Court, comprising Justice Margot Warner, Rolston Nelson and Wendell Kangaloo, yesterday affirmed a 40-year jail term handed down to Edward Anderson by the Port-of-Spain Criminal Court in May 2003 on three sexual offences. Anderson was sentenced to 25 years for rape, ten years for buggery and five years for serious indecency stemming from the May 14, 2003 offence.

He will only serve 25 years in jail, however, since the sentences will run concurrently. Anderson appealed his conviction and sentence, stating that the trial judge had misplaced the application of the “Lucas direction on lies” to an area outside the scope of his alibi. However, in a 14-page written judgment on Thursday, Appeal Court Judge Margot Warner explained that “lies alone cannot prove guilt.”