Appeal Court upholds former pastor’s conviction for child rape

…reduces sentence

The conviction of former pastor Andrew Hannibal for raping an underage girl has been affirmed, but his initial jail sentence of 40 years has been reduced to 25 years.
This was the ruling delivered on Wednesday by the Court of Appeal (CoA) of Guyana in the appeal filed by the sex offender against his conviction and sentence.

Hannibal was found guilty as charged by a jury in 2018 for raping a 15-year-old girl between January 29, 2016 and January 31, 2016 in the county of Berbice. High Court Judge Sandil Kissoon consequently imposed the four-decade-long sentence on the convict, and ordered that he must serve 30 years before becoming eligible for parole.
Shortly after his conviction, Hannibal mounted an appeal against his conviction and sentence, contending, among other things, that there were discrepancies in the prosecution’s case; that the trial Judge had failed to adequately direct the jury; and that the jail term imposed on him was manifestly excessive, and not in keeping with established sentencing guidelines.
In a unanimous decision rendered on Wednesday, the CoA held that although prejudicial evidence had been admitted during Hannibal’s trial, the trial Judge had given the jury sufficient directions/warnings in his summation to cure any defects that might have arisen.

The prejudicial evidence referred to by acting Chancellor of the Judiciary, Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards, who delivered the court’s decision, comprised text messages purportedly sent by Hannibal to the girl’s phone, and the trial Judge’s use of the word “victim” to refer to the girl.
According to the CoA, there was no evidence to support the contention that the text messages were sent by Hannibal, since there was no official document to prove that the phone number belonged to him.
The appellate court also alluded to Hannibal’s ground of appeal in which he complained that Justice Kissoon had referred to the virtual complainant as a “victim” on no less than 20 occasions in his summing up, conveying to the jury that “she was in fact a victim of rape.”
The court agreed with Senior Counsel Mursalene Bacchus that the sentence imposed by Justice Kissoon was manifestly excessive, and not in keeping with recent sentencing guidelines given by Guyana’s apex court, the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), though they were not available to the trial Judge at the time he had sentenced Hannibal.
The CoA has therefore resentenced the convict, and, in so doing, adopted the starting point of 15 years used by the CCJ in the local cases of Linton Pompey vs the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and Calvin Ramcharran vs the DPP. To the base sentence of 15 years, a total of 10 years has been added, given the serious nature of the offence and Hannibal’s abuse of his position of trust, being a minister of religion.
According to Justice Cummings-Edwards, Hannibal was “required to be a shepherd to his flock”. The CoA therefore resentenced the sex offender to 25 years’ imprisonment, ordered that he not become eligible for parole before serving 18 years, and credited him for time already spent in jail.
Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory-Barnes and Rishi Persaud also deliberated on this matter.
During the hearing of Hannibal’s appeal earlier this year, Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, Natasha Bakker, had contended: “The trial Judge referring to the virtual complainant as a victim in the summing up… That may not have been the most sensitive choice of words in all the circumstances…[I] submit that in this case, like all others of course, the summing up has to be taken as a whole, and it would not be proper to simply zone in on the use of that word by the trial Judge while ignoring the overall context of the summing up…”
The State Prosecutor had submitted that the general directions given by the Judge to the jury were sufficient to cure his referring to the teenager as a victim instead of a complainant.
During the trial, it was revealed that the victim’s sibling awoke one morning and discovered that she was not in bed. She was found locked inside a room, where she later confessed to family members about what Hannibal had done to her at his home during the wee hours of January 30, 2016.
According to the facts, Hannibal had messaged the girl and had told her to meet him at the church. From there he took her to his home, placed her on a bed, removed her clothes and raped her. The girl was a member of his church, and would assist with cleaning the church.
Certain information disclosed by her led to a report being lodged at the Blairmont Police Station, and a medical examination done on her proved that she had genital injuries.
In reacting to the jury’s verdict, Hannibal had said, “Your Honour [Justice Kissoon] and members of the jury, I never knew this day would come, when I would have found myself in such a situation and have to experience such a decision. As a community leader and a pastor for over 29 years, never did I thought this day would come. I am very sorry; it is very painful. I know the community has lost its confidence in the church because of the expectations of me. All I ask for is leniency, so I can serve the time and resume back to society as a brand-new man.”
Hannibal was the founder of the Faith Deliverance Ministries located at Rosignol, West Coast Berbice (WCB), and he had opened several branches of his ministry across the country. (G1)