Former JDF soldier gets reduced sentence for rape | News

The Court of Appeal has overturned the mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison imposed on former Jamaica Defense Force (JDF) soldier Craig Dubidah in 2018 for rape.

Instead, a sentence of 14 years and six months was imposed and he is now eligible for parole after serving nine years and six months.

Dubidah was found guilty of kidnapping and rape by a jury in November 2017. He was given a suspended sentence for kidnapping by force.

It was proven at his trial in the St. Catherine Circuit Court that Dubidah, an active member of the JDF, went to a bar with two other men on the evening of October 21, 2014 and ordered drinks. Dubidah and one of the men were known to the complainant, who was the bartender.

After the complainant closed the bar, she was on her way home when Dubidah drove up and offered her a ride, which she accepted. When she showed him the way to her house, he drove in the opposite direction.

Instead, he drove to his house and when she refused to get out of the car, he picked her out and took her to a room where he raped her. After Dubidah left the room, one of the men who was with him began raping her. Upon his return, Dubidah reprimanded the man for raping her and the man left through a window.

While she was walking home after the ordeal, the complainant said Dubidah drove alongside her and offered to drive her home, which she declined. Then he stopped the car, picked her up and put her in the car.

She said he explained to her that he didn’t know what the other man in the room was doing and promised to take care of it. The complainant made a police report and Dubidah was arrested and charged.

Dubidah had made an unsworn statement at his trial that he had known the complainant before and she had agreed to be acquainted with him.

He said he was in the toilet when one of the men raped the complainant and he reprimanded him for it.

The appeal asked the court to overturn the convictions because the judge had failed to properly alert the jury to previous inconsistent testimony.

It was argued that the defense lawyer who represented the applicant at his trial failed “to fully set out the defense arguments, i.e. in the unsworn statement.

The court ruled that there had in fact been no material miscarriage of justice.

The court further commented: “In these circumstances, we cannot say that the applicant would have answered the omitted question differently than when she was asked whether she went to the applicant’s house “one evening” in September 2014 and what whatever happened.

“We are also not convinced that there would have been a real possibility of an acquittal if the complainant had been accused of previous consensual sexual intercourse. We are also of the opinion that the defense counsel’s conduct in the defense was not so extreme as to lead to a….” She rejected the proceedings or left the proceedings entirely without any essential prerequisites for the appellant’s defence, which the would make the conviction unfair.”

On the issue of punishment, lawyers Bert Samuels and Matthew Hyatt argued on appeal that the statutory minimum sentence was clearly excessive in all the circumstances of the case and that the prison sentence should be reduced.

The court then reduced the sentence by six months for the time he spent in custody and ordered the applicant to serve nine years and six months before being eligible for parole.

The suspended sentence for kidnapping by force was confirmed this month by a court comprising Judge McDonald Bishop, Judge Carol Edwards and Judge Marcia Dunbar Green.

The Crown was represented by prosecutors Sophia Rowe and Christina Porter.

-Barbara Gayle

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