Elderly child rapist appealing conviction, jail time to know fate soon

With arguments in the appeal filed by Collin Cummings against his conviction and 30-year jail sentence for child rape having been completed, the Court of Appeal is likely to render its ruling shortly.
When the matter concluded on Wednesday, Justice of Appeal Dawn Gregory announced that the Court would shortly send out notices informing when it would be delivering its judgment.
In the appeal filed on Cummings’s behalf by Attorney-at-Law Tiffany Durant, the sex offender argued, among other things, that the trial Judge had, in several instances, misdirected the jury; and had failed to put his defence of alibi to the jury. In relation to the ground of alibi in this appeal, Durant said her client’s mother had testified that at the time and place the eight-year-old girl alleged she was raped, her son was at another place.

“The implication of that is that she could not have been with him at the same point in time,” the lawyer had argued.
This appeal was heard by Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud, and additional High Court Judge Jo-Ann Barlow. The State was represented by Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions (ADPP), Dionne Mc Cammon.
After a trial before Justice Simone Morris-Ramlall in 2018, Collin Cummings, a gold miner of Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice), had been convicted of raping the girl on August 20, 2016 in the county of Demerara. The trial Judge had ordered that the offender, who is in his 60s, must serve 25 years before being eligible for parole.
When the jurors had returned with their unanimous guilty verdict, Cummings had maintained his innocence by stating, “I am innocent of this charge brought against me.” He had also begged the Judge to give him the minimum penalty.
“I was afraid and uncomfortable with what [he] did to me. I was scared of him, and my life has not been the same,” the victim had related in her impact statement.
Her mother had claimed that after the incident, her daughter would often draw sketches with teardrops, with terms such as “ugly” and “stupid”, which the parent said she would throw away.
A medical examination had found that the girl’s hymen was not intact.
In sentencing the convict, Justice Morris-Ramlall had noted that Cummings had taken away the girl’s innocence. She had added that children are Guyana’s most valuable resource, and had noted that children who are victims of sexual abuse are scarred for life, and this prevents them from maximising their potential, which in turn hinders the country’s development.
“They should be respected and given toys, and not be used as sex toys for the fulfilment of depraved adults,” the Judge had stressed, while declaring that the court would play its part in sending a strong message to potential sex offenders. (G1)