The Guyana Court of Appeal on Tuesday rejected the appeal filed by Calvin Ramcharran, who is currently serving 23 years in prison for raping and assaulting a woman.
Ramcharran had moved to the Court of Appeal, challenging his conviction and the severity of his sentence. The appeal was heard by Chancellor (ag) Yonette Cummings-Edwards; Justice Dawn Gregory and, Justice Rishi Persaud.
The State was represented by the prosecutor, Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Dionne McCammon while Ramcharran was represented by attorney-in-law Nigel Hughes and his associates Ronald Daniels and Sophia Findlay.
The Chancellor, who delivered the ruling, said the court did not find the trial judge erred in law and therefore dismissed the appeal. In 2015, a 12-member jury found Ramcharran guilty of the rape and brutal assault committed on a female adult during a party in Soesdyke, Demerara East Bank, on July 22, 2012.
The first accusation indicated that on July 22, 2012, Ramcharran sexually penetrated a female adult without her consent. The second charge is that he assaulted the young woman on the same date, causing actual bodily harm to her.
The case judge, Justice Jo-Ann Barlow, sentenced him to 23 years for the rape and four years for the charge of assault. During the case, it was revealed that the young woman had left her friends to go urinating when Ramcharran followed her and asked if she was “doing business”.
The woman responded in the negative and Ramcharran then hit her in the head with a bottle, dragged her to the back of a building and raped her.