A rape trial ended with a hung jury yesterday after more than four hours’ deliberation. The defendant was remanded in custody until the next arraignments session when the Department of Public Prosecutions will decide on whether to hold a re-trial.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was accused of raping a non-Bermudian woman in a concrete bunker to the east of Horseshoe Beach last year. He denies sexual assault, claiming the sex was consensual. The Supreme Court heard the defendant was a friend of the woman’s fiancé.

Senior Crown counsel Paula Tyndale said the woman, who is in her 40s, was on vacation at the time of the alleged offence. The defendant turned up at her fiancé’s home one day and her fiancé went out to get beer. The defendant then allegedly told her she was in danger. He described an incident a few weeks earlier when her fiancé had knocked her on the head. His knowledge of this left the woman shocked and emotionally confused.

According to her, the defendant said she had to leave immediately and that he would take her to a friend’s house where she would be safe until she could leave the country. She packed her clothes and left in a taxi with him. They went to an area east of Horseshoe Beach and the man walked her along a trail to the military bunker. He said they had to wait there until his friend got home from work and then they could go to his house.

During the alleged attack, the woman said she had told him ‘no’ but that she was too scared to fight back. She told the court: “I didn’t know where I was. I was afraid. He looked very physical and very muscular. I knew that nobody knew where I was. I didn’t see anybody and it was raining.”

Afterwards, they walked back to the roadside and the woman saw someone she knew, asking to use their cell phone to get a friend to pick her up. As she waited, the defendant hailed a taxi, leaving her on her own.

She reported the alleged incident to Police later that night.

Defence lawyer Charles Richardson told the jury they could only convict if they were certain the woman did not consent, or that his client was reckless as to whether that consent was given. “The evidence could never make you sure,” he said. “In this case, there is nothing that the complainant did or said that was sufficient to convey that she was not consenting.”

On Wednesday — the third day of the trial — the defendant told the court: “At no time did she make it known to me that she wasn’t consenting to sex, and at no time was it made known from her that she didn’t want to have sex with me. It was consensual sex.”

Summing up the case yesterday, Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves said: “The Prosecution said the defendant abused a situation of trust. This accused man held out himself as a saviour, a man who could help, so he put himself in a position of trust. But he abused a position of trust and a position of power.

“She said she made a decision to submit because she did not want to get hurt. It was a rainy day and no one knew where she was. She said she did not resist because she feared the execution of force to her.

“The defendant’s case is that she did consent and even if she did not, he had a reasonable belief that this person was consenting.”

The jury deliberated for four and three-quarter hours but could not deliver a unanimous or majority verdict.