The Tribune

By PAVEL BAILEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

pbailey@tribunemedia.net

A BUS driver was sentenced to ten years in prison for trying to rape a woman he held hostage outside the Mall of Marathon in 2021.

During the trial, the 21-year-old victim said she was a passenger on the number 15 bus of Douglas Edey, 38, after he picked her and her friends up at Potter’s Cay Dock on March 7, 2021. She told her friends that Edey made her feel uncomfortable and asked to be dropped home first.

Later that evening, after Edey had dropped everyone else off, he stopped in the area of the Mall at Marathon and told her that she wasn’t leaving until she had sex with him.

During the sexual asault, Edey reportedly grabbed the victim’s breasts and privates and told her to put the tip of his penis inside her.

She escaped from her assailant twice, running once to Wendy’s and a second time to KFC. After the second escape, Edey reportedly pulled out a hammer and threatened her outside Kelly’s Home Centre, forcing her back to the bus. She said he told her: “Watch and see what I’m going to do to you.”

She recounted through tears how she fought him and “felt it” when he put the tip of his penis inside her.

She also said she saw him put on a condom and felt it near her privates.

The victim ultimately escaped when Edey stopped the bus, allowing her to jump out of a window.

He was reportedly arrested outside Kelly’s Lumber Yard on East Street in the company of the visibly traumatised victim later that evening.

A nine-person jury unanimously found Edey guilty of the offence over the summer.

He has a previous unlawful sexual intercourse conviction from 2014.

Throughout his trial, he maintained his innocence and claimed that he and the victim were in a relationship at the time of the assault.

Justice Guillimina Archer-Minns told the convict that the young victim suffered mentally, physically and emotionally from the ordeal. She also said he made her relive her harrowing experience by having to testify.

The judge noted that Edey only expressed remorse in the late hours following his conviction and dismissed the idea that he was ever in a relationship with the victim.

“This is not the manner of conduct that love is expressed,” Justice Archer Minns said. If she were in a relationship, “she would have been running toward you and not away from you.”

Edey’s 10-year jail sentence must run from the date of his conviction.

Eucal Bonaby prosecuted the case. Nathan Smith represented the accused.