Bush raped woman in mangrove clearing, prosecutor tells jury: Cayman News Service

(CNS): Former Cayman Islands Prime Minister and longest-serving member of Parliament McKeeva Bush has been accused by a woman of raping her on the ground of a mangrove clearing on West Bay Road more than 24 years ago. Opening Bush’s historic rape trial on Friday, Eloise Marshall KC briefly outlined the allegations the woman has made against him. Bush has not only denied raping her, but denied even knowing her. In a police interview, Bush said the incident never happened as alleged.

While laying out the prosecution’s arguments, Marshall told the jury that the woman, then 27, had gone to a bar in George Town to pick up her mother, who had been there drinking. The woman says local politicians were at the bar celebrating an event, including Bush, who at one point asked her if she would give him a ride home in his car. As they drove along West Bay Road, he asked her to stop. She assumed he needed to urinate, so she stopped near a mangrove clearing.

But when she stopped, Bush began kissing her and she completely froze, Marshall told the jury. When he got out of the vehicle, he also coaxed her out of the car and continued to hug and kiss her, but the woman did not respond to him. During her interview with police, she had described how he tried to get on the ground and when he managed to do so, he pulled her down too.

The prosecutor told the court that although the woman had asked Bush to stop and made it clear that she did not consent, he still raped her. The woman recalls that it did not last long and she remembers him “slobbering all over me” and making noises as he lay on top of her body. She said he felt very heavy because she was very slim at the time and his body felt huge.

The woman says she was confused and scared and didn’t know what to do because she knew he was in the government and a powerful person. (Bush was then a secretary in the Executive Council, as the cabinet was then called.) When it was all over, he seemed satisfied and told her to get in the car, and then he drove her home, she says.

The prosecutor said the woman kept the entire incident to herself and didn’t tell anyone at the time; she simply blocked it out because she didn’t want to believe it had happened. But in 2021, she began to suffer from flashbacks, Marshall said. The first person she told was her mother, and soon after, she told two friends and then her pastor. Fed up of being triggered, keeping the secret, and reliving the ordeal over and over, she decided to file a police report.

Marshall said Bush gave a prepared statement when he was arrested but did not answer police officers’ questions. He had said he did not know the victim, had never been with her and the allegation was not true. Bush told police he had no idea why she would make such an allegation and said it was stalking.

The case continues.