City businessman Kevin Jordan, who has been convicted and sentenced to 18 years in jail for raping a seven-year-old boy, is out of prison after successfully applying for bail pending his appeal.
Jordan was granted bail in the sum of $1M on December 21 last by Justice of Appeal B.S. Roy, after his attorney Neil Boston petitioned the Court of Appeal.
The convict, 56, was sentenced to 18 years in prison by Justice Dawn Gregory on October 30 last, after a 12-member jury at the High Court in Georgetown had found him guilty on one of two counts of buggery.
The jury’s verdict was 11 to one in favour of guilty.
Jordan’s appeal application is premised on the ground that the jury failed to deliberate on its verdict for a minimum of two hours, as specified by law. The defence is contending that the jury deliberated for only 80 minutes, before returning its guilty verdict.
Section 158 of the Criminal Law Procedure Act 10:01 provides that for non-capital offences, where there is a majority verdict, a jury must deliberate for at least two hours before arriving at its decision.
Prosecutor Judith Gildharie-Mursalin yesterday explained to Stabroek News that in the return of such verdicts, the trial judge must direct the jury that it cannot emerge from the jury room before at least two hours of deliberations would have elapsed.
The charge for which Jordan was convicted stated that he carried out the act on the child on November 7th, 2007. Jordan, the owner of Jordan’s Spare Parts at High and Broad streets, had been arrested in 2007 after four boys, between the ages of six and eight years old, alleged that he molested them at his business place.
The boys had been students of a nearby primary school.
