BY KIMONE FRANCIS Observer staff reporter francisk@jamaicaobserver.com Monday, August 14, 2017
THE police unit responsible for investigating sexual and other abuses of children have arrested and charged a man accused of impregnating a teenage girl in the Lawrence Tavern community of St Andrew.
The accused was charged by officers assigned to the Centre For Investigation Of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) with having sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16 years.
On Friday, Detective Inspector Anderson at the unit told the Jamaica Observer that the man was granted bail, but that it was not known if he had taken up the offer.
He made his first court appearance on July 14 after being arrested in June. He is to return to court on September 13.
The Observer first reported the story on June 12 after the aunt of the teen disclosed that she had been impregnated by the man at the age of 14.
The woman also said her niece was forced to lie about her age whenever she visited the clinic. She is currently pregnant with her third child for the accused, who is believed to be in his early 50s.
“She tell them she was 17, which was not true, and now she is pregnant again for him at 17, but a tell people she a 21. She not even giving dem her real name, so you know that child won't even have her right name on the birth certificate. I tell my sister to leave but she said she not moving to country. So that is the result,” the woman told the Observer in June. CISOCA was contacted by the Observer about the matter, an investigation was launched and the man taken into custody.
Anderson, however, pointed out that the outcome of the case is dependent on whether or not the victim is willing to cooperate with the police.
“She is his babymother, so I don't know which way the halls of justice will swing. Oftentimes when you have cases like this, it's all dependent on the complainant. Every action that police take is dependent on how interested the complainants are,” Anderson said.
The teen's mother, who, it is alleged, was aware of her abuse, has since fled the community, fearing that she, too, could be arrested and charged by the police.
“She say me bring down problems inna her life and she don't talk to me now. She leave too, because she don't want dem lock her up,” the aunt told the Observer.
She said her sister hadIn the meantime, the woman is to receive a two-bedroom house after she was forced to flee the community after the accused in the aforementioned case and his cronies allegedly issued death and rape threats to her and her 13-year-old daughter.
The mother of 10 had shared with the Observer in June that the accused and self-proclaimed area don allegedly attempted to sexually groom her child who was only nine years old at the time. She said the incident was reported to the police, which resulted in a court case. The woman said nothing came of the case, which was followed by consistent threats from men in the area who are said to be a part of this so-called don's entourage. insisted that she was not willing to report the matter, which she believed would've disrupted her life. more
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