Shopkeeper guilty of carnal knowledge

Arden Middleton

Guilty! That’s the verdict against thirty-nine year old Arden Middleton, a shop keeper who was accused of carnally knowing a fourteen year old girl. It took the jury of six men and three women only three hours to reach a unanimous decision. Inside the courtroom of Justice Troadio Gonzalez, Middleton appeared sad and shook his head before turning his gaze to the floor.  According to the fourteen year old minor, after sitting outside the shop known as Little Wilt’s Place on Caesar Ridge Road, she asked the shopkeeper to use the restroom.  The girl said that Middleton, whom she knew by the nickname ‘Gads’, took her to his room and forced himself on her. Upon returning home, her mother inspected her because she was aware that she was troubled. The mother confronted Middleton and testified that Middleton admitted that he had intercourse with the girl. She said the day after the encounter with the shopkeeper, she was waiting on a city bus, and Middleton offered to pay the daughter’s school fees in return for silence. To add salt to the wounds, Middleton told the woman that he was not the child’s first lover.  She took her daughter to the Human Services Department on July fourteenth 2011 and the doctor who examined the child testified that she was carnally known and she had a fresh wound that indicated that there had been contact within twenty four hours. With mounting evidence against him, Middleton’s defense was absence. He said he was not at the shop at the day the incident occurred and his brother also gave a similar testimony. Justice Troadio Gonzalez deferred sentencing until April eighteenth when mitigation pleas will be heard on his behalf.