Last week an unusual case surfaced in court involving an alleged rapist and the complainant.

The woman complained to the police in 2005 that the man had raped her and he was arrested and charged.

When the matter came before the Home Circuit Court last week for trial they were now husband and wife, which led to many queries from persons in court.

The man was freed after the prosecutor told the court that the director of public prosecutions had taken the decision not to prosecute the rape case against the man. The woman had told the court on a previous occasion that she did not wish to go on with the case.

The woman, when cross-examined last year at the preliminary inquiry in the Corporate Resident Magistrate's Court, had insisted that the man had raped her. She said they lived on the same premises and on the day in question the man had asked her to buy food for him. She refused and the man came into her room and raped her.

She said she telephoned her boyfriend and told him of her ordeal, and when he came he asked the accused about it and he denied raping her. She gave birth to a baby about seven months after she was raped, but she said the accused was not the father of the child. She also admitted that she and the accused had an intimate relationship for about one year, but the relationship had ended months before she was raped.

When she returned to court some time last year, she told the court that she did not wish to go on with the case because she and the accused were married. The matter was sent to the Home Circuit Court for trial.

"This case is rather strange," a woman police remarked after she heard the outcome of the case last week Friday.

A wife can testify against her husband in a criminal case, but in law she cannot be compelled to do so.