Court quashes conviction of two St Elizabeth men

Thirty-two-year-old Omar Fear and 24-year-old Dwayne Donaldson, both from St Elizabeth, have been freed by the Court of Appeal after spending nearly five years in prison.

In freeing the men, The court quashed their convictions for illegal possession of firearm, rape, unlawful wounding and indecent assault.

The men were sentenced in 2012 to serve a total of 20 years imprisonment but the Court of Appeal set aside the sentences.

The appeals court upheld submissions by attorneys-at-law Emily Shields, Marissa Wright, and Gillian Burgess that the evidence against the men was weak.

The lawyers argued that the convictions should not be upheld because the judge, in his summation, misrepresented the evidence of the complainant.

The lawyers argued that the judge failed to properly examine the circumstances under which recognition was made.

The complainant had testified at the trial in 2012 in the Gun Court that during the early morning of October 18, 2010 she was in bed when the door was kicked down.

The complainant said a man entered the house and hit her on the forehead with an object.

She said the man took her to a track where he and another man raped her at gunpoint.