THE COURT of Appeal has ordered that a man who "rescued" a 15-year-old girl while she was being raped by some men and then took her to a house where he raped her at gunpoint, serve his 10-year prison term.
He is Andrew Fuller, labourer, of Olympic Gardens, Kingston 11, who was convicted on May 21, 1999 of illegal possession of firearm and rape.
The facts of the case were that at about 2 p.m. on May 19, 1995, the schoolgirl was talking to another girl when five men blocked her path and held her hands. She resisted and cried for help. The men pulled her into a house where three of them had sexual intercourse with her.
Fuller who had a gun stuck in his waist, entered the room and told the men to leave the girl alone or else he would shoot them. One of the men said "Father whey you a do?" Fuller asked, "don't you have sisters too," and took the girl outside. "
The girl asked Fuller where he was taking her and he told her to "shut up and come." He ordered her to climb over a fence. While she was climbing over the fence she told him that the wire was cutting her foot and he replied "you lucky." He took her to a house where he locked the door and put the key into his pocket.
"After you help me, how come you want to rape me after that?" the girl asked. Fuller replied that he would not call it rape and threatened to shoot her if she did not have sexual intercourse with him. He raped her several times during the night and when he opened the door at about 8 a.m. the next day, the girl ran outside and went home.
When Fuller was arrested by the police he denied being in possession of a firearm. Fuller's defence was one of consent.
Fuller appealed against his convictions and sentence on the ground that the trial judge failed to direct the jury on the issue of honest belief.
The Court of Appeal, in dismissing Fuller's appeal, said "where an accused raises a defence that he honestly believed that when he had sexual intercourse with a complainant she was consenting, a direction to the jury is dependent on the facts of the particular case." The court ruled that in Fuller's case there was no basis for any such direction on honest belief.
