Grande dad guilty of rape

Michael John, of Quash Trace, Sangre Grande, was found guilty of beating and raping a woman during the early morning hours of May 21, 1989. The woman was 18 years old at the time and lived in the same district.

Seventeen months after John was arrested and charged with rape and causing actual bodily harm, he was able to get someone to take his bail. However, he absconded and was only re-arrested on a warrant in April 2005. John will be sentenced on Friday by Justice Alice Yorke Soo-Hon in the Port-of-Spain Assizes. State prosecutors in the matter were Nalinee Singh and Shoba Jamunar, while John was defended by attorney Ryan Cameron.

John claimed he had a sexual relationship with all three sisters at the same time, one of whom was the mother of three of his children. The woman strongly denied having any sexual relationship with John, or that she had agreed to have sex with him.

The woman related her horror story to a jury of five women and four men.

The jury heard that the girl lived with her brother and 20-month-old son at Quash Trace, Sangre Grande. On the morning on May 21, 1989, about 3 am, she was awakened by a noise and became scared. She got the accused’s brother, Richardson, who lived about three houses away, to stay with her until her brother came home. The woman, her baby and Richardson were in the livingroom, when John walked in and told Richardson to leave. The woman begged Richardson not to leave, but he did.

When Richardson left, the woman picked up her baby, but John told her to take off her clothes. She refused and he began to choke her. She broke loose and as she ran with her son in her arms, she tripped over a couch and fell. Her baby fell out of her arms and landed on the floor. John started to cuff the woman on her face and body. At that point she agreed to have sex, but asked, "Leh me take a little breeder." As she sat there resting, John became impatient and warned her, "Yuh getting meh real vex."

She took up her son and went back to the bedroom, but again refused to obey John’s command to take off her clothes. She told him, "You will have to kill me."

John took up a broom handle and started beating her. While being beaten all over her body, the woman urinated and defecated on herself.

She asked John to let her go outside and clean herself up, but he insisted that she must do it right there. He then forced her to the bed, slapped her across the face and raped her.

John then left the house and about five minutes later the woman’s brother arrived home. He took her to the police and hospital.