Man serving 2 life sentences for child rape files appeal at CCJ.

Micah Williams, who is currently serving two life sentences for raping an underage girl, has now filed an appeal at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) after his initial appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal of Guyana in December of last year.

Williams’s appeal is set to be heard next month at one of the CCJ’s itinerant sittings which will be held in Guyana from June 21 to 22 at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC) at Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown.

In 2018, the 38-year-old former trade unionist, was found unanimously guilty of raping a girl on two separate occasions– when she was seven, and then again, when she turned eight. 

The offences were committed in January and December of 2016 and in January 2017 at a location in Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice).

He was consequently sentenced to life imprisonment on each of the two charges but the trial Judge Jo Ann Barlow ordered that the sentences run concurrently. Williams must serve a minimum of 25 years before he becomes eligible for parole.

When he appeared in 2018 before the said Justice Barlow and the decision of life imprisonment was handed down, Williams told the court that he found the jury’s decision “strange” and as such would be challenging it at the local appellate court.

However, in rejecting the offender’s appeal, the Court of Appeal ruled that his convictions were safe and that the trial Judge imposed the jail terms after considering the facts of the case and mitigating and aggravating factors. The court also noted that the sentences imposed on the sex offender were in keeping with the principles of sentencing.

In one of his grounds of appeal, Williams had argued that he was not the one who sexually molested the girl but rather it was a 14-year-old boy who did. He had contended that the child was being influenced by two of her family members to implicate him in the crime.