Julius Branker, who broke into a woman’s house and raped her at knifepoint is claiming that his 40 years sentence for the crime is too “severe.”
As a result, he has moved to the Court of Appeal, seeking to have his sentence and conviction set aside.
On February 15, 2014, Branker was sentenced to 40 years behind bars by justice Simone Morris-Ramlall after being guilty of raping the woman.
When given a chance to speak, a shocked Branker, professed his innocence after the verdict.
Before imposing sentence, Justice Simone Morris-Ramlall said that she had considered the nature of the offence committed at the hands of Branker, who broke into the privacy and comfort of the woman’s home in the wee hours and violated her.
From the evidence presented, the judge noted that the convict held the woman at knife point and raped her on the bed in, which her 18-month-old child was asleep at the time.
The judge recalled that the child eventually ended up under the bed, though she said it was not stated at the trial how the infant got there.
Justice Morris-Ramlall said that the convict had no regard for the verdict of his peers, nor did he show any remorse, either personally or through his attorney.
However, Branker is claiming that the trial judge made a number of errors in law, which effectively render his conviction unsafe, and as such, it should be set aside.
