NASSAU- A jury has unanimously acquitted a 32-year-old man of the alleged sexual assault of a child who tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease.
Police were made aware of the child sex abuse case after the eight-year-old girl was diagnosed with genital warts in April 2018.
The girl told a doctor and police that her mother’s companion and the father of her four-year-old half-sister had molested her.
As a result, the man, whose name has been withheld to protect the child, was charged with unlawful sexual intercourse with a dependent.
However, following a trial before Justice Deborah Fraser, prosecutors failed to convince any of the nine jurors of his guilt.
There was no evidence that the man and the child had the same sexually transmitted disease. A doctor testified that the HPV virus, which causes genital warts, is incurable.
After he was arrested, the man tested positive for chlamydia, a treatable sexually transmitted infection.
Defense attorney Bjorn Ferguson told jurors that it was clear that someone had molested the young child, but his client had been falsely accused.
He suggested that the child tried to frame the man because she didn’t like him.
https://bahamascourtnews.com/accused-child-molester-freed-on-appeal/?amp
