By Stabroek staff | Wednesday, January 27, 2010 in Local News 

Magistrate Hazel Octive-Hamilton yesterday sentenced a 40-year-old man to four years imprisonment after ruling that she had found him guilty of buggering a seven-year-old child in 2008.

The allegation was that on August 7, 2008, at Hadfield Street, Rudy Morgan buggered a seven-year-old boy who is now nine.

Brazilian national - carnal knowledge and buggery charges Zam was sexually assaulted

The magistrate in her ruling yesterday at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court stated that the prosecution had presented sufficient evidence to the court to support the allegation against Morgan and as such by law she had found him guilty of buggery.

The case which was tried summarily in front of Magistrate Hamilton was initially transferred to her court by Acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson before whom Morgan had made his first court appearance on September 8, 2008.

Morgan’s trial commenced before Magistrate Octive-Hamilton on April 14 last year and during all the court proceedings he had declined to cross-examine any of the witnesses.

Last year the Administration of Justice Act was applied to the indictable charge of buggery, making it a summary one and Morgan had entered a not guilty plea.

Prosecutor Shellon Daniels, who was the main prosecutor in the matter, concluded her examination of the witnesses yesterday.

These witnesses were the Virtual Complainant (VC), his mother, the arresting officer, the policeman who collected the results of the physical examination of the VC from the doctor and several others.

The prosecutor stated that the facts of the case are that on the day of the incident the VC was alone playing on Hadfield Street, Lodge, when Morgan confronted him and took him to his Hadfield Street home where he buggered him.

After the incident the child went to a nearby health facility and asked to use the washroom but when nurses there noticed that he had been in there for a long time they made checks on him. The women, who suspected that he had been assaulted, took him to a doctor who confirmed their suspicions.

The child’s parents were called in and a report of the incident was made to the police station. Morgan was then arrested and later charged with the offence.

Standing outside the dock in the courtroom, the unrepresented Morgan told the court that he did not know anything about the incident.

The Lot 47 Hadfield Street, Lodge resident, who repeatedly contended that he was innocent of the charge, was subsequently escorted out of the court by a policeman.