The jury spent 5½ hours yesterday returning a verdict in the case of Alex John Hill (21). He pleaded not guilty to all seven charges he faced and was cleared of two other rape charges and three common-assault charges against the same woman.
Hill was found guilty by a majority verdict of the second rape charge he faced, which Crown Advocate Simon Thomas said related to the victim giving evidence that on a number of occasions in 2019 she had asked him to stop during sex and he had not. During the trial, Crown Advocate Simon Thomas, prosecuting, quoted from messages between Hill and the woman on the Snapchat social-media platform, including ‘I was a rapist and I did abuse you but nothing is going to change the past and I am sorry for that’ and ‘No, it wasn’t just once when you asked me to. I did not stop like five times’.
And the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict on the grave and criminal assault charge in which he choked her until she passed out on one occasion. Giving evidence earlier in the week, the victim said she had passed out for one minute after Hill placed his hands on her neck.
One woman who gave evidence during the trial and reported the offence to the police on behalf of the complainant, said Hill ‘could have killed’ the victim when he choked her.
Another Snapchat message from Hill read out in court said: ‘About the choking thing, I was drunk and heavy-handed. I never meant to do it.’
The victim also said she was scared of being ‘hurt again’ after being choked unconscious.
Appearing as a witness in his own defence on Wednesday, Hill claimed that his victim ‘convinced’ and made him ‘believe’ he was a rapist.
Advocate Mark Boothman, defending, read out three character witness statements for Hill in his closing statement on Thursday, which he said spoke of the defendant ‘highly’, and argued that there were ‘inconsistencies’ in the prosecution’s case.
The offences were committed when Hill was a teenager.
The Bailiff, Timothy Le Cocq, was presiding. He said Hill would be placed on the Sex Offenders Register and sentenced at a later date.
Commenting after the verdict, the head of the Public Protection Unit, Inspector Paul Ryan, said: ‘The States of Jersey Police have the utmost determination to investigate and prosecute all sexual offenders and we can assure victims that there are a number of agencies who are in a position to offer support and guidance, through all stages of the criminal justice process’.
