Appeal court upholds DJ’s rape conviction

(CNS): Local DJ Renato Rolando Harris (41) has failed in his bid to get his 2022 conviction for rape overturned after the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal found “no proper ground to disturb the finding of fact made by the trial judge” in this case. According to the findings of the court, Harris raped the complainant at his home while she was incapacitated on the first occasion and while she tried to get away on the second. The trial judge had found the woman to be a credible, honest witness.

Harris is currently serving a 16-year prison term after he was convicted of two counts of rape at his George Town apartment in 2018. The first time was when the woman was drunk after Harris reportedly plied her with liquor to the point where she recalls being nauseous.

Harris was supposed to be taking the woman home but instead drove her to his house. She remembered telling Harris she did not want to go inside. She told the court at the time of the trial that she had no memory of going up to his bedroom and no knowledge of events until she woke just after 7:00am and realised that she had been raped.

The second rape took place just after she awoke. When she tried to leave the bed, Harris forced himself on her and raped her again despite her resistance and asking him to stop.

Harris claimed the woman was not drunk at any point, and she had consented to intercourse both times. On appeal, he argued that the judge had failed to consider the possibility of drunken consent. But at the time of trial, Harris had claimed the woman was not drunk at any point. However, the trial judge had accepted the complainant’s account that she had not consented or appeared to consent at any time.

The appeal court rejected that argument as well as three other points regarding the woman’s subsequent pregnancy, the failure of the crown to investigate other witnesses and the trial delay because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The appeal judges found that none of these arguments had merit.

“There is nothing in this case to suggest the trial judge’s verdict was wrong or based on any legal error,” the appeal court judges said in their written ruling, as they rejected all of Harris’s grounds of appeal.

Search for the appeal court’s full judgment here.