Daughter forgets details of incest in court

A forty-year old man from the Punta Gorda area was freed of a charge of carnal knowledge after his daughter, now fourteen years old, took the stand but failed to testify against him. Although she pointed out her father as the man who had sexual intercourse with her on several occasions between February 2010 and April 2011, she refused to give evidence to assist the prosecution’s case. When she was asked by the prosecutor Sheneiza Smith about the dates when her father had abused her, she said she could not remember, and attempts to get details of the incidents were unsuccessful. Prosecutor Smith then made an application to have her own witness treated as a hostile witness but Justice Troadio Gonzalez rejected the application and directed the nine member jury of four men and five women to return a not guilty verdict against the father. The father was charged with two counts of carnal knowledge in 2011 after allegations that sometime in February 2010, he had sexual intercourse with his daughter at a house in Western Belize and then again in 2011.  After being acquitted, the father left the court en route to his home town, Punta Gorda.