Girl relives rape by stepfather!

by Alisha Ally – St. Lucia Star 13.NOV.09

A Vincentian man, Samuel Williams, who was recently convicted by a jury in St. Lucia of raping his

11-year-old stepdaughter, will know on November 24 just how long he will be confined to prison.{{more}}

The girl told a court presided over by High Court judge Justice Kenneth Benjamin that Williams had sexual intercourse with her on Sunday, February 11, 2007, between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. in Denniere Riviere, Dennery.

In cautioning the jury before their deliberations, Justice Benjamin said: “The accumulated experience of the court over the years has shown that people who complain that sexual offenses have been committed against them sometimes for a variety of reasons, or sometimes for no reason at all tell false stories.”

The jury returned with a guilty verdict and Williams is set to appear in court for sentencing on November 24.

Williams married the victim’s mother in 2006 and lived with the family for three months before the incident. The victim revealed she did not have a good relationship with Williams because she

didn’t like him and she was unhappy that her mother brought another man into the house. She admitted she wanted to go live with her father but denied wanting to use any means necessary.

On the first day of the trial, the victim, while in the witness box, was asked by the Crown to identify her attacker but could not, even though she was given permission to peruse the Court. The person she described as her attacker was short, chubby, brown skinned with “nice curly hair” and did not wear spectacles. The man in the courtroom was short, brown skinned, slim with facial hair and glasses. The Crown concluded she had last seen the defendant in 2007 and since then several aspects of the defendant changed, especially as he was nursing a prolonged illness.

In the witness box, the girl described her home as being made of wood and wall with two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom and a sewing room. She said on the day in question she was at home with her two sisters and her stepfather as her mother had gone to church. In her testimony the girl said she was playing outside then she went into the house, got a bath towel from the bedroom and went to shower.

After she finished showering, she said, she took her towel and “Mr Samuel rushed against me, placing his left hand over my mouth and his right hand over my breast, forcing me to lie down on the cold concrete floor” in the sewing room.

She said he then took off her towel and threw it on the table in the kitchen. She spoke softly, saying he unzipped his blue jeans pants and then proceeded to have intercourse with her for five to 15 minutes. The victim testified she was crying through the entire ordeal, all the while the defendant’s hand was covering her mouth. Her older sister was in the bedroom studying and her younger sister was watching cartoons in the living room.

She said after that happened, she called to her younger sister asking for a shirt but got no response. The complainant testified that she dressed herself in a shirt and a skirt from the sewing room and went to the kitchen to get a knife to “kill Mr Samuel”. He was not in the kitchen at the time. She then went into her mother’s bedroom where she saw Williams standing by the window and attacked him.

The defendant’s Statement Under Caution said he was in the kitchen when he was accosted with a knife. In both versions of the story, the knife was thrown out of a window. The girl’s mother and sister could not confirm that a

knife was missing from the kitchen and the investigating officer did not search for a knife in the course of her investigation.

Confronted accused

The complainant said she did not tell her sisters about the incident because the defendant threatened to tell her mother “about this when she gets home”. She testified that she was afraid of the consequences.

However, when her mother returned home, the girl revealed what had occurred and her mother then went to confront her husband “behind the house”. The victim testified that when her mother re-entered the house, she took a flashlight to “examine” her. The mother said she observed a “yellow discharge, redness” and “a cut” in her daughter’s vagina and she gave the girl Savlon to “go and clean herself”.

Forensic Scientist, Fernanda Henry, said the results of the Sexual Assault Kit could be altered if the victim douches and that could explain the One Plus rating (a trace element) of sperm found in the victim.

Her mother took the complainant to the defendant who was still behind the house and confronted him. He denied the allegation and the girl’s mother subsequently took her daughter to the hospital where Dr Roger Herelle examined her in the presence of a police officer and herself. From there, the complainant was taken to the La Caye Police Station where she gave a statement on February 13, 2007. The girl, in her statement, said no one visited the house between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on that Sunday and she did not leave the house before her mother returned from church.

Dr Herelle’s evidence indicated that the injuries he observed could have been inflicted between two to six hours before his examination. There were two separate tears to the hymen. The doctor said he collected fluid samples and gave them to the investigating officer.

The forensic scientist confirmed she received the samples on June 8, 2009. She observed that the kit was sealed and could see no evidence of tampering. This was corroborated by the investigating officer. DNA testing was not carried out on the samples to determine whether they belonged to Williams. Her findings indicated the extract from the vaginal swab was positive for seminal plasma and blood was present. The oral swabs were negative for seminal plasma.

Williams, in his Statement Under Caution said on the day in question, his wife left him to finish up the cooking and the victim and her younger sister used the older sister’s uniform belt as a play thing, hitting him with it. He added he asked the girls to get cleaned up but the victim refused to comply. He said eventually the victim took her towel and made her way to the bathroom. He told the investigating officer after she came out of the bathroom, she took up a knife in the sink and he took it away from her and had cause to tell her to behave herself and she then proceeded to cry.

Williams did not take the stand during his trial.