Aussie acquitted of rape charges

A Manila court acquitted a 51-year-old Australian hotel chain owner of rape charges filed by a 16-year-old girl in 1998, citing her claims as unimaginable, abnormal, doubtful, and cannot pass through the strain of reason, among others.

Wesley Prince, who before his arrest owned at least two small hotels and a bar in Angeles City, Pampanga, was acquitted by Judge Perfecto Laguio of Regional Trial Court Branch 18 of two counts of rape for insufficiency of evidence.

"Justice has prevailed. Justice is alive in the Manila courts. She ruined my life and I became bankrupt. I cannot forgive her," said Prince, while hugging his Filipina wife as they step out of the court.

Prince reportedly leased and operated the Lord and Vegas hotels in Angeles City, and was about to buy the Royal Palm hotel in Ermita, Manila, when he was arrested and detained early last year. He spent at least 11 months at the Manila City Jail. Prince has since reportedly lost Lord and Vegas Hotel when it went bankrupt.

The Australian businessman said that he and his supposed victim Jennifer Weaver, now 18 years old, were lovers, which the court said was more "plausible and persuasive and has to be accorded more weight."

Aside from the rape complaint, the victim said she was maltreated by being deprived of food for several days along with other girls and were detained in one of the hotel rooms of Prince.

However, the girl also narrated that she and rest of the girls later played on the beach while being watched by the accused and one of his hotel managers.

The girl, who had work as dancer in the bar owned by Prince, had claimed that she was drugged by the accused that caused her to fall asleep in August, 1998. She said that ever since, she was deprived of her freedom and was constantly under guard whenever she went out.

The relationship of the two ended when Prince’s wife discovered their illicit affair and began harassing the complainant.

"The fact that the accused slept with (beside) the complainant instead of occupying another room, considered conjointly with the following factors inevitably tended to establish that there was no rape and the sexual intercourse was consensual," said Judge Laguio in his 13-page decision. The judge questioned the victim’s failure to cry or call for help a number of times while allegedly being raped and her failure to confide her ordeal to her friends and her classmates in the computer school, where the accused sent her to study.

"Further . . . (the victim) kept the matter to herself. It was only in December 1998 or three months after she was allegedly first raped, that she filed criminal charges on the matter. Such passivity and inactivity create in the minds of the court reasonable doubt as to her truthfulness and good faith," said the court.

Prince’s lawyer Dante David said he expects his client to go back to managing his hotels.