Seven years after he first appeared in court charged
with sexually assaulting a young boy while serving as a
member of the Guyana Police Force, Vaughn Thomas has lost
an appeal that challenged his conviction and ten-year
prison sentence.
Thomas
sodomising a 15-year-old boy
But an application by his attorney, Nigel Hughes has
cleared the way for Thomas' case to go to the Caribbean
Court of Justice (CCJ). After the Appeal Court panel -
Justices Claudette Singh, Ian Chang and Nandram Kissoon -
handed down the decision, Hughes applied for leave to
approach the recently inaugurated CCJ and it was granted.
Attorney-at-law, Roger Yearwood, who appeared in
association with Hughes, had argued Thomas's case at the
Appeal Court hearing.
Thomas, an ex-policeman who was attached to the Grove
Police Station, approa-ched the Guyana Court of Appeal
through his lawyers last December, more than a year after
he was found guilty by a jury and later slapped with a
ten-year sentence by Justice Winston Moore.
He appealed on the grounds that there were mis-directions
by the judge on the issue of identification. He also
argued that the judge improperly admitted into evidence
the deposition of a deceased witness and that his
confession was improperly admitted.
Yesterday, the Appeal Court panel affirmed the
conviction and the sentence and ruled that though there
were some mis-directions in the High Court case, they were
in Thomas' favour and did not prevent him from receiving a
fair trial.
Thomas was dismissed from the force after charges were
instituted against him and in November 2004, his jury
trial commenced before Justice Winston Moore.
He was accused of sodomising a 15-year-old boy on March
27, 1999 in an alleyway at Land of Canaan on the East Bank
Demerara, about 12 feet off the public road. During the
trial, the victim took the stand and testified that he was
jogging along the East Bank public road on the night in
question when Thomas drove up alongside him in police
vehicle. He was topless at the time and recalled that
Thomas made an issue of this before ordering him into the
car.
The boy told the jury he begged to go home and Thomas
dealt him a slap. He said the policeman then drove to a
remote alley and committed the act. The jury had a
detailed account of the assault the boy suffered.
According to the victim, Thomas told him that what
happened that night was just between the two of them but
he told his parents the minute he got home.
Hughes, who also appeared for Thomas during the High
Court trial, had argued then that the victim was told on
the day of the identification parade that the suspect was
going to be on the parade and the victim admitted this.
However, in evidence that was read in court, Thomas had
confessed to Assistant Superintendent of Police Lawrence,
that he had picked up the boy the night and later had sex
with him.
On November 9, 2004, the jury unanimously found Thomas
guilty of buggery and common assault after deliberating
for less than two hours. On November 22, Justice Moore
sentenced him to ten years imprisonment.
In passing judgement, Justice Moore said the element of
aggravation was that Thomas used his uniform, which
constituted a pledge to serve and protect, for a
reprehensible purpose. Justice Moore said the accused even
admitted committing the act with the expectation that the
force would have covered it up.
