The Court of Appeal has released its reasons for dismissing a bid for leave to appeal the conviction of Renato Harris on two charges of rape.
The appeals court said the case involved a “direct clash of evidence” presented by counsel for defendant Harris and the prosecution.
In a written judgment, the court said: “After a lengthy trial, the trial judge was entitled to decide as she did; that she was sure the complainant was an honest and reliable witness and the appellant was not.”
The judgment, released Friday, added that a Privy Council ruling in 2015 had emphasised that appeal courts should “only in rare cases” be satisfied that a trial judge had made a wrong decision about the credibility of a witness.
It said: “This is not only because the trial judge has the advantage of seeing and hearing a witness. It goes beyond that.
“The trial judge may be led to a conclusion about the reliability of a witness’s memory or their powers of observation by material not available to a an appeal court.
“Evidence may read well in print but may be rightly discounted by a trial judge or, on the other hand, they may rightly attach importance to evidence which reads badly in print.”
Harris was sentenced to 16-and-a-half years in jail in 2023 after he was convicted of two counts of rape the year before.
The rapes happened after a night out in 2018 when the victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, crossed paths with Harris at a bar on West Bay Road.
The woman said she accepted an invitation into Harris’ Prospect home but did not remember anything else, apart from waking up in his bed naked the following morning, when Harris sexually assaulted her a second time despite her cries and screams for him to stop.
The appeal court judgment said: “There is nothing in this case to suggest the trial judge’s verdict was wrong or based on any legal error.
“Accordingly … we would refuse this application for leave to appeal conviction.”
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