Retrial ordered for man convicted of child rape

The Court of Appeal has unanimously overturned an elderly man’s conviction for raping an eight-year-old girl, finding that the trial Judge committed errors that rendered that conviction unsafe.
The Justices vacated Collin Cummings’s conviction for statutory rape and sent his case back to the Demerara High Court to be retried at the next criminal session.
They held that a retrial was warranted in the interest of justice.
The appellate court’s ruling overturned the jury’s guilty verdict which was delivered after they received directions from trial Judge Simone Morris-Ramlall.
That Judge had sentenced Cummings to 30 years’ imprisonment, ordering that he does not become eligible for parole until after serving 25 years of his sentence.
In the appeal filed on his behalf by Attorney-at-Law Tiffany Durant, Cummings had 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 [the virtual complainant] could not have been with him [Cummings] at the same point in time,” the lawyer had advanced.
This appeal was heard by Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory-Barnes 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 Morris-Ramlall in 2018, Cummings, a gold miner of Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice), had been convicted of raping the girl on August 20, 2016.
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.
Cummings is said to be in his 60s. (G1)