A convicted child molester will have to wait a few more weeks before learning whether a Court of Appeal (COA) panel will set him free.

A source close to the Bahama Journal said Andre Birbal’s decision would not come before next month as the court is on summer recess.

“The matter is not on the court’s schedule, which can be viewed online, but it is likely that the matter will come up as the panel only has to read a decision and decisions are not normally placed on the courts’ calendars’,” the source said.

Last year, Birbal was convicted of having unnatural sexual intercourse with two of his former students at the Eight Mile Rock High School in Grand Bahama.

At the time, the Trinidadian was sentenced to 35 years as a result – 20 years for the first five counts and 15 for the second to run consecutively.

Earlier this month, the 50-year-old argued several points, which he told the justices should lead them to release him.

Firstly, the convict said there could have been possible collusion between the two boys because there was evidence of them communicating. He said the judge should have directed the jury on how to assess that properly.

President Anita Allen agreed noting that the judge should have told the jury of the risk that there might have been collaboration between the two boys.

Birbal also gave the panel several instances where the boys could have “concocted” a plan against him.

He said they both lived in Hanna Hill in Eight Mile Rock; they both attended the Eight Mile Rock High School and they were in some of the same classes together.

Birbal also suggested that the panel let him go because there was innocent contamination of the case from a third party, there was not full discovery of evidence for the defence, the defence’s case was not properly put to the jury and there was adverse publicity against him before and after the Supreme Court trial.

The former art teacher also argued that the sentence was “unduly severe” and that the judge never gave any consideration about previous convictions.

Birbal remains on remand at Her Majesty’s Prisons (HMP).