Convicted rapist will get new trial

In other court news, a convicted rapist has been granted a new trial. Last October, forty-eight year old Dennis Gabourel was sentenced to ten years in jail for raping and beating his ex-common law wife. Today, Hubert Elrington successfully argued against Gabourel’s conviction on the grounds that the trial judge erred in law and failed to adequately address the jury on the aggravated assault charge as well as failing to sever the charges against the accused. As a result, the Court of Appeal has ordered that Gabourel be set free and retried for the same offences. The charges arose out of events occurring on September nineteenth 2003, when Gabourel’s ex-common-law wife alleged that he took her to the area of the Belize City municipal airstrip and forced her to have sex with him.