An arrest warrant has been issued for Alex Garraway, 22, called ‘Uncle Alex,’ of 1162 Cummings Park, ‘E’ Field, Sophia, who was yesterday afternoon found guilty by a jury of raping a five-year-old girl back in 2018.
The verdict was announced in the absence of Garraway, who failed to show up for court yesterday morning, or make any contact to explain the reason for his absence.
Justice Brassington Reynolds, who presided over the trial, said it was unfortunate that the now convicted man had not attended court and that there was no word of his whereabouts, even though the court had made efforts to contact him.
Garraway’s attorney, Ravindra Mohabir, could also not account for his client’s absence.
The lawyer would only ask for sentencing to be deferred to facilitate the presentation of a probation report.
Justice Reynolds acceded to the request and adjourned sentencing until June 18th at 3pm.
Though Garraway had attended all of his other court hearings, he was a no-show when the judge was ready to commence the summation of the case to the jury yesterday morning.
Right up to the point when the panel retired for deliberations and returned with its verdict, Garraway had still not turned up.
It was thereafter that Justice Reynolds issued the warrant for his arrest.
After just about an hour of deliberations, the jury returned with unanimous verdicts convicting Garraway on the first count for rape of a child under 16 years and on the second count for engaging in sexual activity with the child.
They found him guilty of sexually penetrating the toddler between November 1st, 2018 and April 30th, 2019; and then performing the sexual act of touching and placing his penis on her buttocks, sometime during the same period.
The prosecution’s case, led by state counsel Nafeeza Baig, had been that the now seven-year-old had related after the incident, that Garraway had placed his penis in her vagina and on her buttocks.
Garraway’s defence had been that he was nowhere around at the time the child reported she had been abused; and that it therefore could not have been him who molested her.
Apart from his defence of alibi, he sought to point a finger at someone else.
The trial proceedings were held in-camera at the Sexual Offences Court of the High Court in Georgetown.
