Man gets four years for attempted rape

By Latrishka Thomas

A man is beginning a four-year prison term after a jury found him guilty of attempting to rape a young woman.

Sazeek Joseph, 22 at the time of the offences, was found guilty by a jury in March of attempted rape and serious indecency arising from events that unfolded in the early hours of June 9, 2022.

Yesterday, he was sentenced to four years on the first count and one year on the second, both to run concurrently.

The complainant, who was 18 at the time, told the court that the evening had begun innocuously enough. While conversing with the defendant on WhatsApp on June 8, 2022, she mentioned she was stressed and wanted to go to dinner with her best friend. The defendant, who told her he rented cars, offered her one for $100. She went to his house to collect it and he got in the car with her and said he was going to All Saints where the complainant also had to pick up her friend.

The group, which eventually included the complainant’s best friend and her boyfriend, spent the evening getting food, with the defendant driving and at one point playing with a taser during the journey. After giving the best friend and her boyfriend a ride, the complainant, feeling uncomfortable, asked the defendant to drop her at a friend’s home, telling him to return for her later.

While waiting, he sent her a message saying she looked attractive and that he wanted to perform a sexual act on her. She asked her friend for a ride home but his car was not working — a detail her friend later confirmed in court. When the defendant returned to collect her after 1 am., he was visibly angry, accusing her of having had sex with her friend, which she denied. He told her that it was his time now.

He drove her to a dirt road near Pasta Box, where he wound up the windows and locked the doors. He reclined her seat, climbed on top of her and began wrestling with her. He tore her underwear. He unbuckled his pants and exposed himself. He turned on the taser. She cried and fought back. He eventually stopped and drove her to Gray’s Hill, and during that drive she recorded a conversation in which he admitted to tearing her underwear, asked her if she wanted money to replace it and asked whether it was “Victoria’s Secret”.

At Gray’s Hill he pulled off the road, took her phone and attempted to have sex with her again, this time inserting his finger into her vagina. When her mother called her phone, he allowed her to answer and she got out of the vehicle.

She messaged him when she got home saying she was disappointed in him. He replied that he had been testing her. When she asked what he meant, he said he wanted to see how easy she was. He then sent a voice note telling her that he could have had sex with her if he wanted to, and that he wanted her to be tougher and know how to get out of situations like that. She reported the matter to police the same day.

The defendant told a different story at every turn. In his first police statement, he said he drove her directly home and never mentioned the dirt road. He denied tearing her underwear and denied she was crying. He also denied agreeing to rent her a car. When police played the recording of him admitting to tearing her underwear during a second interview, he claimed it was a spare underwear she had in the car, and not the one she was wearing.

In his unsworn statement to the court, he said she had been trying to flirt with him to pacify him after keeping him waiting, and that he tore the underwear from her hand while trying to throw it away.

The Crown, led by prosecutor Curtis Cornelius, tendered the WhatsApp messages, voice notes and the recording to the jury. The owner of the car also took the stand and confirmed he had rented the vehicle to the defendant and had not given him permission to sublet it; a detail used to paint him as a liar.

Messages in which the defendant called the complainant terms of endearment, which she ignored, were also addressed in court and used by the Crown to undercut his claim that he was not attracted to her. The torn underwear, with the crotch ripped away, was also tendered as evidence.

The jury rejected the defendant’s account and found him guilty on both counts.