A man who was convicted last July of violently sexually assaulting a female failed in his bid to appeal his 14 year sentence.

Rohan (Junior) Rockion Richards was found guilty of two counts of serious sexual assault causing bodily harm and two counts of unlawful wounding with the intent to do grievous bodily harm between February and May, 2003. He was also convicted of a count of burglary and intimidating a witness.

After the conviction Richards launched an appeal of the conviction and of the sentence, both failed.

During the trial the jury heard that Richards abducted his female victim, held her captive in her home, and seriously sexually assaulted her. She was cut on the leg with a knife during one of the attacks, and injured with a ratchet during the other.

The woman he assaulted, Lindsay Brooks who waived her right to anonymity so that others would have the strength to speak out, told the court that the assaults began after she ended their relationship. She broke up with him because he was involved with another woman.

The 31-year-old married Jamaican did not take the stand in his own defence, meanwhile the prosecution had a number of witnesses who corroborated Ms Brooks evidence during the trial.

On Friday at Supreme Court, Defence counsel Shade Subair attempted to argue a number of grounds of appeal.

She said that the Chief Justice Richard Ground improperly summed up the case and did not provide the jury with a definition of "unchallenged evidence".

Throughout Crown counsel Carrington Mahoney's final address to the jury he said that the defence had failed to challenge much of the evidence.

Ms Subair cited 15 examples of Mr. Mahoney saying evidence had gone unchallenged. She said that the defence case was that Ms Brooks made the whole thing up. She said that by suggesting that she was challenging the Crown's case.

President Justice Edward Zacca said that while Richards had the right to remain silent his failure to present his version of events hurt him being as he was charged with very serious sexual offences.

He said that Richards giving evidence would have further challenged the Crown's evidence and that challenging it solely through cross examination was not the strongest way to go about it, in this case.

Justice Gerald Nazareth said he doubted that the jury would have come to a different conclusion if they had been provided with a definition of "unchallenged". They did say that Mr. Mahoney's approach could be described as aggressive.

Ms Subair also argued it was unfair that the Crown was allowed to question two defence witnesses about unrelated personal matters.

Justice Nazareth agreed that it could be called unfair, but said it was unfair to the witness and not her client. Ms Subair argued other grounds for an appeal but the three-men panel said that the request for appeal would not be granted because the Crown's case had an "abundance of evidence" and that there was no evidence offered by the defence.

Ms Subair then argued for an appeal of the sentence saying that they should not run consecutive but Justice Zacca said he did not agree with her.

She argued that people who have sexually assaulted a minor, which is considered worse, have received lighter sentences. On Monday the panel said they felt the sentence was adequate and rejected the appeal of sentence.