Jason Jones, an LGBTQ activist from Trinidad, brought a constitutional challenge against Sections 13 and 16 of the Sexual Offences Act (1986). Section 13 criminalized anal intercourse (buggery), and Section 16 criminalized serious indecency between persons of the same sex.
The appellant was convicted of raping his minor daughter and sentenced to 18 years and three years imprisonment, for rape and incest respectively, to run concurrently. He appealed his conviction, claiming that his minor daughter was the only witness to the alleged crime, that the trial judge improperly assumed the complainant was under 18 years old, that the prosecution did not meet its burden of proof, that his rights to legal representation were not explained, and that the sentences were unreasonable.
The 54-year-old accused pleaded guilty to culpable homicide based on allegations that she unlawfully poured boiling water on her husband. He refused to seek medical attention for his injuries because he was embarrassed and he died six days later. The Court ordered a suspended sentence because the accused “had been and was being” viciously attacked by her husband and was escaping his attack.
The accused was charged with rape of his seven-year-old granddaughter between the months of August to October 2008. The prosecution alleged that the accused did intentionally have unlawful sexual intercourse with a female seven-year-old minor who is incapable of consenting to sexual intercourse.
This is a child custody case involving a father (the applicant) seeking custody of his minor child because the child’s biological mother, the respondent, sought to take the child to Sri Lanka without the applicant’s permission. The applicant and respondent were never legally married and the respondent had custody of the child. The Court found that Section 31 of the Constitution abolishes the status of illegitimacy of children but that Section 31 is silent on the status of the father of a child born out of wedlock.
In this case, the court overturned a “strikingly short” two-year sentence imposed on the defendant, who was convicted of attempting to kill his ex-girlfriend by stabbing her three times, including once near her eye, with a knife while she was holding her 2-year-old child.
The defendant was convicted of murder and violating the Combating Domestic Violence Act for killing his girlfriend after the police had warned him to stay away. Before sentencing, the court noted that the defendant’s punishment had to reflect the “extremely serious” nature of his crime. The court stated that “[t]he sentence . . . must reflect the seriousness [with] which the court regards any such act of violence committed against women and all other vulnerable people in our society,” and imposed a 32-year sentence (¶¶ 10–11).
