Nine days cannot kill all stories – Clean up the system!!!

13.MAY.11

Editor: I wish to raise an issue that seems to have gone out of the minds of Vincentians.{{MORE}} I speak of the situation regarding three male teachers who were accused of sexually molesting and/or engaging in acts of gross indecency with a male or male students at the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Community College. It is three months now since our society cried ‘murder’ on these three men and embarrassed them and their families. The teachers as far as I am aware are on suspension with full pay and since then have not been charged with an offence. Rumour on the ground is that they have been re transferred to the Ministry of Education from the Community College which is a statutory organisation. Rumour on the ground as well is that the esteemed director of the college is completing his last semester and shall return to his substantive post at the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill in Barbados in August. I have a few questions and thoughts to ask and share. I crave your indulgence.

Three months later we still do not know who the student or students are that have been sexually abused and the teachers still have not been charged. Why? Surely if the reason is that investigations are being carried out, they are taking a tad bit too long. The computers and personal electronic items of these men have been confiscated. How long does it take to go through a computer system to find incriminating evidence? What is the students’ story? Surely what was spread around vincikalaloo cannot be true. The teachers were not caught in any sexual act with any student; they were in fact individually picked up at their private residences in the wee hours of the morning. Sources confirm that the student who made the report on the teachers was already expelled from the college for stealing a cellular phone from a lecturer before he made the report to the director; hence he was not a student at the time the report was made. It is said that he returned a month after to make his claims in vengeance as is his custom since his days at the Grammar School. Are we going to allow the director to return to work at the regional university before we get his say on charging the men or getting them to sue him, which they probably need to do since it is alleged that he breached the Colleges Act of 2005 and did not inform the teachers that a report was made against them before reporting the matter to higher authorities which the said Act requires him to do?

An issue which was raised before resurfaces: If the student who made the report took chat logs, which he hacked into the computer of one of the teachers to obtain as evidence to the authorities, are these really admissible in a court of law? Has he breached the law by hacking into a private computer and downloading chat logs? Can chat logs really be used as evidence in a court of law? How does one know who is really chatting? If anyone can sign into someone’s email or msn messenger and chat, who says that teacher x or y was chatting at the time? Wives in their attempts to catch their husbands cheating chat to women using their husband’s msn account using endearing words to get appropriate responses to drag their husbands across the coals. Was it their husbands chatting? No! Laptops are mobile devices and could be used by anyone. Desktops are also not private if friends and others are allowed to use them, and the student in question is known for computer hacking, even from remote places. The principals of his former institutions need to open their mouths and speak. Are chat logs evidence of sexual activity? So if man x says to his buddy that he had sexual relations with Joan on Tuesday, does that mean that he did? Surely not! It means that the issue is bigger than we know and that all parties in these chat logs must be brought to court as well. That is a huge case or cases. Sources say that another male is also in a number of the chat logs. Why was he not arrested?

The final point I wish to make is that there are several male teachers in this country who engage in sexual relations whether real or in conversation with their male students, and the Ministry of Education needs to investigate them. The situation still exists at the very Division of Arts at the Community College, an Anglican secondary school in Kingstown, two secondary schools within the Marriaqua Valley, the prestigious boys’ secondary school in Kingstown, the secondary school in Georgetown, and the secondary school at Campden Park. There are also several male teachers who are having sex with their female students, and some female teachers who are involved with their male students. Let’s clean up the system. I have three sons and a daughter, and God forbid if they should be abused by any teacher!! I will be the one on court.



Concerned Citizen