A young woman did not consent to having sex with two teenagers, a Supreme Court judge has ruled in knocking down an appeal of their conviction.

On February 1, Chief Justice Austin Ward dismissed the appeals of Carl Darrell and Sage Nearon who challenged convictions on the sexual assault of a 17-year-old girl in November 1996.

Darrell, 21, and Nearon, 21, were convicted in April, 1997. Nearon was aged 16 and Darrell was 17 at the time of the offence and their term of sentence is not known. An appeal of the sentence will start on March 1.

Mr. Justice Ward ruled Magistrate Cheryl-Ann Mapp had properly found the pair had touched the girl in a sexual manner without her consent, saying: "On the evidence before her the learned magistrate could feel sure of the conclusion at which she arrived.'' He also found that "weaknesses and apparent inconsistencies'' in the girl's testimony advanced by their lawyers do not relate to the fact the incident occurred.

Lawyer Juan Wolffe appeared for Nearon, of St. George's, and Victoria Pearman represented Darrell who is from Devonshire. Patrick Doherty represented the Crown in the appeal.

"The issue thus became one of consent,'' Mr. Justice Ward said. "The conduct of the complainant belied consent.

"In reality therefore it mattered not whether it was at the initiative of the appellants that they went to the rock area, nor even if before going there they understood the complainant to promise them sexual favours,'' he said.

Mr. Justice Ward added: "The issue was what happened once they were there and above all whether the complainant consented. Clearly she did not.'' The appeals were filed a week after the convictions, and Mr. Justice Ward called the delay in getting them before a judge "inordinate and inexcusable''.

Mr. Justice Ward rejected defence lawyers' suggestions that Mrs. Mapp "reversed the burden of proof'' after looking at her explanation of why she came to the decision.

Using the terms the magistrate used, the judge said: "Preferring one version of events against another in that way and concluding that one is more credible than another would, on the face of it, suggest that the standard of proof which was applied was on a balance of probabilities.'' The case centred around the girl's invitation to the boys at the Hamilton Bus Deport to her Hamilton Parish home for "social interaction only'' on November 12, 1996.

When she found her mother at home the girl led the boys to a wooded area on the Railway Trail where the boys "took advantage of the complainant as they outnumbered her''.

Mrs. Mapp found the pair tried to fondle the girl who called out to a passerby, a man described in the initial reports as a dreadlocked Rastafarian.

During the trial the pair maintained the girl invited them to her home and then to the wooded area for sex, and when she refused they verbally abused her.