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Verdicts in the trial of two men accused of sexual assault in Helston cemetery

A jury has returned verdicts in the trial of two men accused of alleged sexual abuse on the steps of St. Michael’s Cemetery in Helston.

After just over five hours of deliberation, they found both men not guilty on all charges.

Calvin Rosevear from Mullion and Joe Skewes from Helston, both now aged 40, appeared before Truro Crown Court on a total of five offences.

These are said to have taken place in the early hours of July 9 last year. Both men pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Rosevear was charged with rape with penetration of the mouth and additional charges of sexual assault.

The jury found him not guilty on both counts.

Skewes was originally charged with three counts of sexual abuse and one count of sexual assault by finger penetration.

However, on Monday, the jury was asked to throw out this final charge against Skewes because he had admitted to committing the act during evidence. As a result, the only question that remained was whether the act was consensual – an issue already addressed in the third charge of sexual assault.

Today (Tuesday) the jury found him not guilty on all three counts of sexual assault.

The previous sixth count of assault by penetration was dropped, and the jury was instructed not to return a verdict on that count by order of Judge Robert Linford.


You can read what happened on the six days of the trial so far here:


During the seven-day trial, the court learned that the plaintiff had spent the evening with work colleagues in Helston.

After drinking in two other pubs, she went on to the Beehive where she continued drinking.

At around 2 a.m., she went outside with a friend and crossed the street to the area next to the museum where she vomited.

While they were there, Rosevear and Skewes came and sat on the steps above the cannon.

They testified that they walked from Skewes’ house into town, stopped on Wendron Street to do a line of cocaine, and then walked to the Beehive – although they did not knowingly cross the plaintiff’s path during this time.

They then decided to walk to the museum area to do another line of cocaine and make Rosevear urinate, but since there were already people there, they sat on the steps instead and waited until they left.

Shortly thereafter, the plaintiff’s friend returned to the Beehive and came up to the stairs to talk to them.

Rosevear had described her to the jury as “a funny guy” and added: “She was very flirtatious and we asked: ‘Would you like to have a bit of fun with us?’ She said: ‘Absolutely.'”

He recalled pressing his face into her breasts and saying, “I couldn’t be pushed away. It was consensual.”

And Skewes described the moment they met the plaintiff for the first time: “Calvin comes right up to her and asks, ‘Do you want a threesome?’ I couldn’t believe it when she just said yes.”

The surveillance cameras show that the plaintiff and the two men get up shortly afterwards and walk along Church Street. The defendants state that they were looking for a place for a threesome.

The plaintiff had tried to create the impression that the men had dropped the names of their friends during the conversation and claimed that they had said that her friend had gone to a house party and that they were going to take her there.

However, the jury believed both defendants when they said that neither a house party nor the names of their friends were mentioned.

Rosevear had previously stated in a witness statement: “She did not have to come along. She was absolutely fine, she was not stumbling around everywhere.”

He had told the court that they went to the steps of St. Michael’s Church, where he lay down and they started kissing and “fooling around.”

It wasn’t long before a couple walked past the trio.

The court heard from Rosevear: “She (the woman) started asking (the plaintiff), ‘Are you OK?’ I think she said, ‘I’m OK.’ She seemed very embarrassed by all of this.”

He said the couple walked away but returned shortly after and “basically dragged (the plaintiff) down the stairs and then she was gone.”

He said the plaintiff did not cry at all. “There were no ‘no’s.’ If there had been any, I would have stopped altogether. I am a gentleman. I am not a forceful man,” he said.

“I was totally shocked how it happened. It was all just ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’. It was supposed to be a bit of fun. I didn’t think or expect it would lead to me being here. It’s just very bizarre, you know?”

The passerby stated in court that she approached the plaintiff and said to her: “Come on baby, you can do better than that.”

She added: “Then as we walked down the hill, she said, ‘They didn’t do anything, they didn’t do anything.'”

The court had also heard the testimony of a woman with whom the plaintiff had been drinking that evening. She told police that she heard the plaintiff say: “I need to go home with someone tonight. I need sex.”

When questioned in court, the woman recalled that the plaintiff “said she couldn’t go home tonight without having fucked, and that she had fucked 50-year-old guys before. In the middle of the dance floor, loudly so people could hear.”

When asked in court, the plaintiff denied this statement.

When Judge Linford asked the jury to reconsider their verdicts, he explained the legal position on the issue of consent and its connection to alcohol.

He had told them: “Consent must not be confused with submission,” and then added that lack of consent should not be confused with regret.

On the subject of alcohol, the judge said: “Both (the plaintiff) and the defendants admit to having drunk a lot of alcohol.”

“In assessing (the plaintiff), you must consider whether the amount she drank impaired her ability to make free decisions.

“If you find that (the plaintiff) was so drunk that she was not capable of making a free decision on the issue of consent in that situation, she would not have consented.”

However, he added: “You have to remember that consent while drunk is still consent.”