Expert claims sex victim could have been `asleep and relaxed'
The doctor who examined a woman after she was allegedly sexually assaulted, could find no visible signs of injury, a Supreme Court jury heard yesterday.
And on the fourth day of trial, the prosecution rested its case after several Police officers and other witnesses took the stand in the sexual assault case of a woman by a 28-year-old man.
Prosecution's expert witness, Dr. Monica Hoefert explained to Assistant Justice Charles-Etta Simmons that the woman's "vaginal area showed no injury".
She noted that the lack of injuries was consistent with the victim being ``asleep and relaxed".
The 27-year-old victim has alleged that the man - after he was invited to her house by several friends after a night of partying at the Swizzle Inn in Hamilton Parish - sexually assaulted her while she was asleep in her room.
The accused a foreign national who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to the charge, that happened in the early hours of March 23, this year.
"In your expert opinion, were your findings consistent with the fact that she was asleep and relaxed?" asked Crown counsel Oonagh Vaucrosson.
"Yes," said Dr. Hoefert, who is director of the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital's sexual assault response unit.
But the defendant's lawyer, Patrick Doherty, posed the question that the findings could also indicate that the victim consented to the sexual act.
"It can be - yes," Dr. Hoefert replied.
But she went on to explain that you may not see injuries even with certain types of consensual sex.
The prosecution rested after several officers testified to the arrest of the man including Det. Sgt. Robert Pedro, who was the interviewing officer of the accused.
Det. Sgt. Pedro said that the man had to have a translator, because "he spoke little English".
And in reading the accused man's statement to Mrs. Justice Simmons and the jury, the court heard details of how the man said he spoke to the victim while dancing with her at Swizzle Inn.
The man also said in his statement that he was invited home to her house by a "man with fair hair".
"She was hanging out with a lot of people," the man said. "We danced four songs to disco. I left the restaurant and they were outside and they invited me to their house. I cannot give a description of who it was. It was a man who invited me - a white man with fair hair."
The case continues before Mrs. Justice Simmons today.