The Tribune

By FARRAH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

fjohnson@tribunemedia.net

A MAN who denied having sex with a three-year-old boy was told by a Supreme Court judge that he does have a case to answer.

Colyn Algreen was arrested in November 2019, after a woman known to him discovered that her son’s anus was torn and bruised after the young boy had gone out with Algreen to get food.

He pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse with a minor of the same sex during his trial before Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson.

Following the close of the prosecution’s case, Algreen’s attorney, Miranda Adderley, made an application for a no-case submission after contending that a prima facie case was not made out.

However, after some consideration, Justice Grant-Thompson overruled the no-case submission and said the matter would proceed to the jury for deliberation.

In response to the judge’s decision, the accused chose to remain silent. He also opted not to call any witnesses to testify on his behalf.

When the young boy’s mother first gave evidence, she said on the day in question, she was sitting on the couch when Algreen decided to go out to get something to eat from a food truck in the Yamacraw area that was about two minutes away. The woman said as the accused was about to go to the door, her then three-year-old son cried to go with him, so she allowed him to go.

The woman said at the time, the accused asked her if she wanted to come as well, but she declined because she was not feeling well.

In her evidence, she said when she realised five minutes had gone by, she tried to call Algreen’s phone, but it kept going to voicemail. She said she then became worried and continued to panic while calling his phone until he arrived home about an hour later.

The woman said when the accused pulled up, she grabbed her son, who was holding a bottle of Goombay soda in his hand and carried him inside. She said when she laid him on a bed and took off his underwear, she noticed a blood stain on it along with some residue of faeces. She said she also saw bruising on his buttocks.

She said she took photos of the boy’s buttocks and underwear, before leaving him on the bed to ask Algreen what had happened.

The mother said the accused told her the child fell on a seatbelt when he pressed brakes suddenly. She said when she asked Algreen why the trip took so long, he also claimed he went to the food place, but it was closed so he went to a tyre shop and gas station to put fuel in his car. She claimed Algreen also mentioned something about a bouncing castle in Fox Hill.

The woman also said her son looked like he had just finished crying when she retrieved him from the car that day. She said when she questioned the accused he was shaking and sweating and saying: “You think I would do something to your child?... I wouldn’t do something.”

The woman said the incident was the first time that Algreen ever took her son out alone. She also said she had an opportunity to check the young boy before he went out because five minutes before they left, the child had to defecate, and when he was done, she came in to wipe his buttocks.

Both prosecution and defence counsel are expected to deliver their closing submissions before Justice Grant-Thompson sums up the case today. The jury is also expected to deliberate their verdict shortly afterwards.