While noting that most sexual offenses go unreported, a prosecutor yesterday urged a jury to bring justice to a teenage girl who spoke up.
In her closing address in the trial of Jamal Daniels, Koschina Marshall told the jury not to be distracted by suggestions that the victim was "fast', as their only duty was to determine if sexual intercourse occurred with a 14-year-old on September 22, 2014.
Daniels has denied the charge of unlawful sexual intercourse at his trial before Acting Justice Renae McKay.
Marshall said, "The law doesn't say about how she was dressed. She cannot give consent. No 14-year-old can consent to sex. If she's 14, she cannot say I want sex and if you have sex with a 14-year-old, you are guilty according to the laws of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas."
Holding up a photo taken of the victim back in 2014, Marshall said, "Look at her, she doesn't even look 14 - that's a child."
According to the prosecution's case, Daniels lured the girl to his home on Carmichael Road through a fake Facebook profile.
The victim's Facebook 'friend" Quetell suggested that they both get tattoos at a parlor on Carmichael Road.
The victim, now 17, caught the bus to the parlor and as she was on her way, a man who spoke with an American accent called her phone from a private number and asked if she was still coming.
The victim said when she arrived she asked Daniels for Quetell and was told that she was in another room.
The young woman said that Daniels did not complete the tattoo on her stomach and held her down and raped her. Police also photographed the incomplete tattoo.
Marshall told the jury that in the past, your friends were people that you knew, but the victim grew up in the age of social media, "where they believe these people are their friends".
Although the girl did not report the matter immediately, she told a social worker what happened two days later.
Marshall said the victim's hesitation to report the matter was consistent with most cases of sexual abuse, which often go unreported.
Marshall said that there was corroboration of the victim's account as she was able to describe Daniels' bedroom before she was shown photographs that police had taken of the scene, and she directed police to his home.
Marshall said the attacker spoke with an American accent and Daniels told police that he was born in Brooklyn, New York. He also admitted that he was a tattoo artist and police found tattoo and piercing equipment in his home.
Marshall showed he had something to hide when he initially took police to the wrong address on Carmichael Road.
Daniels' lawyer, Allan Emmanuel, told jurors that the girl's claim was not supported by scientific evidence and they should, therefore, acquit him.

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