BARBARA GAYLE, Star Writer

A photograph with an endorsement at the back on which an alleged rape victim confessed her love for her attacker a month after the alleged incident, led to the accused man's acquittal this week.

Orville Campbell, 40, a corporal in the Jamaica Defence Force was freed in the St Catherine Circuit Court of the rape charge.

A jury in the St Catherine Circuit Court retired for 25 minutes before returning the not guilty verdict.

It was alleged that on August 14, 2010, the soldier went to a house in St Catherine where he sexually assaulted a woman he knew.

Woman consented

According to the Crown, the woman reported the matter a month after the alleged incident.

However, the soldier reportedly told the police when he was arrested that the woman consented.

In his cross-examination, the soldier's lawyer, Peter Champagnie, suggested to the complainant that she made up the rape story because the soldier refused to end a relationship with another woman.

Champagnie tendered into evidence photograph of the woman which she had sent to the soldier one month after the alleged rape. She admitted sending the photograph to him and also admitted that she had made the endorsement on it that she loved him.

Justice Bertram Morrison presided over the trial.