From the Courts
February 8, 2013

Mother angry over release of man charged with several counts of rape

The release by the authorities of a man initially charged with over 100 counts of rape, incest and carnal knowledge, has at least one former alleged victim calling for justice.{{more}}

“I don’t know what is going on in this country — I don’t know,” the young distraught woman told SEARCHLIGHT on Wednesday.

The 32-year-old woman said when she was a teenager, she too was a victim of the man, when she lived at home with her mother.

The man was her mother’s boyfriend.

“I got pregnant for him,” she said.

The woman said, as the years went on, the man began interfering with three of her four daughters, including the one he himself fathered.

She alleges her mother’s lover also molested two other young females in the area.

She alleges that her first daughter may have been molested since she was 9; her second daughter, who she alleges was also victimized is now 13 and the third is now 11.

“It is not something that does talk today, it start from way back – I don’t know how to handle it, I don’t know how to get out of it,” she said.

The woman told SEARCHLIGHT that she and two other sisters were repeatedly molested throughout their teenage years.

The woman said she first learnt that the man had been charged when in 2011, when she read in the newspaper that an individual from the Leeward side of the island had racked up over 100 charges of rape and incest.

She said when she went to court, she heard that the number had risen to 185.

Up to the point when charges were brought against the individual, she said she had no knowledge that her daughters were being preyed upon, by the same person who destroyed her life.

“I never noticed anything, I never saw anything.”

“All she tell me ‘he ain’t touch me, but he say he will kill me’,” the woman said.

She continued, saying that her children would often spend time at their grandmother’s place, but that the grandmother often turned a blind eye to what was going on.

“Then last week, I heard that the case dismissed, me say you sure?”

The woman claims that she has evidence that her daughters were molested.

“Me na know how come dat case dismissed,” she said.

She says that she is now afraid that the man, who has since been set free, may look to do harm to her other children, who now live with her.

“So see so much ah wickedness ah gwan, and he get away free, so how you want me as a mother to function out there?”

She says that she feels helpless and that no one listens to her.

“Me ah cry now and nobody nah hear my pain,” she said.

But Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Colin Williams explained that there were a lot of charges brought against the individual initially.

“But realistically, they couldn’t really survive,” he said.

He further explained that the complainant may have made a general statement that something happened over a period of time, but in terms of solid evidence, there is none.

“So you narrow it down,” Williams explained.

He said that he told the Prosecutor Nigel Butcher to concentrate on the charges that were either most recent, or those that the complainant had greater recollection, rather than a bland statement.

“I would concede that a vast majority of the cases would have gone by the way side, but in essence, it is just to have a more targeted prosecution rather than one that is riddled with tenuous evidence,” the DPP told SEARCHLIGHT.

Prosecutor Butcher, when contacted however, indicated that there were other charges pending which have not been thrown out.