(BVI Beacon) Jurors unanimously found a Guyanese man guilty of raping his ex-girlfriend after holding a jackknife against her in 2008.
Derek Cort, 45, could receive a maximum of life in prison for the August 6, 2008 rape, which allegedly occurred in his former girlfriend’s apartment in South Valley, Virgin Gorda.
He is scheduled be sentenced on May 31.
The victim testified that she had been in a relationship with the defendant but they had broken up in June or July 2008, High Court Justice Indra Hariprashad-Charles said during her summation. The night of the rape, Cort entered the victim’s apartment without her knowledge while she was speaking on the telephone, according to prosecutors; he then raped her after threatening her with the knife.
Jurors, however, did not see the knife because “some misplacement” occurred with it and other evidence, detective Lesroy Simmons said under cross-examination.
During her summation, Justice Hariprashad-Charles told jurors that it was a “simple” case.
“It is for you to decide whether there is the absence of consent in this case,” the justice said. “It is a case of her saying, ‘He was there. He forced me. He had a knife to my throat.’”
