Court of Appeal reduces life sentence to 25 years for Berbice man convicted of raping elderly woman

A 42-year-old man, Marino Corbis, who was convicted for raping a 69-year-old woman during a brutal home invasion in Berbice in 2016, has had his life sentence reduced to 25 years by the Court of Appeal.
While the appellate court upheld his conviction, it found the original sentence to be excessive given the circumstances.
Corbis, who had returned to Guyana in 2016 after residing in Antigua and Curaçao, was tried at the Berbice High Court in early 2018. His trial, which lasted approximately two weeks, was presided over by Justice Sandil Kissoon and heard before a 12-member mixed jury. At the conclusion, Corbis was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The offence was committed in the early hours of November 16, 2016. The victim, a woman who had known Corbis since he was a child and viewed him almost as a son, testified to enduring a horrific 30-minute ordeal. According to her testimony, Corbis forcefully entered her home during the night and raped her at knifepoint.

Throughout the trial, Corbis denied committing the crime. He maintained that he was at home at the time of the incident. However, his defence did not formally pursue an alibi defence, nor were any witnesses called to corroborate his claim.
In his appeal, Corbis challenged both the conviction and the sentence. He argued that the trial judge’s directions to the jury were unbalanced and unfair, contending that the summation leaned heavily in favour of the prosecution’s case while neglecting to properly outline the deficiencies in the evidence and the defence’s arguments. He also maintained that the life sentence imposed was unduly harsh.
The matter was reviewed by a panel of three appellate judges: Acting Chancellor of the Judiciary Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards, and Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud. The ruling was handed down on Wednesday.
In delivering the decision, the appellate court found that the trial judge had adequately addressed the key issue of identification. Chancellor Cummings-Edwards pointed out that the complainant was well-acquainted with Corbis, having known him from infancy, and that her identification of him during the prolonged attack was not based on a fleeting or uncertain sighting.
However, the appellate panel did note that some aspects of the trial judge’s summation could have been more balanced. Specifically, the court acknowledged that the summation appeared to place more weight on the prosecution’s case without giving equal consideration to the weaknesses in the evidence presented. Among the concerns raised were the lack of forensic evidence linking Corbis to the crime, and the fact that no fingerprints were collected by investigators from the crime scene.
Despite these concerns, the Court of Appeal concluded that the evidence presented during the trial was strong enough that the jury would likely have arrived at the same verdict regardless. “It is clear the jury would have arrived at the same verdict,” the court ruled.
In relation to the sentence, the appellate judges agreed with the appellant that a life sentence was excessive under the circumstances. Referring to regional sentencing standards and recent decisions by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the court underscored the need for proportionality and consistency in sentencing, even in cases involving grave offences such as sexual violence.
While the panel noted several aggravating factors, including the severity of the offence, the use of a weapon, the emotional and physical trauma inflicted on the elderly victim, and the significant breach of trust, they held that a term of 25 years’ imprisonment would be a more appropriate punishment.
As a result, the court ordered that Corbis serve 25 years behind bars, with credit to be given for the time he has already spent in custody, both before and after his trial.