Yvonne Ba­boolal

Rape vic­tims who are too trau­ma­tised to go to court now have the help of a group of six lawyers to see them through the process gratis. This was dis­closed by at­tor­ney Lennox Sankers­ingh who said he and the lawyers in his Cou­va cham­bers last year came up with the idea to help vic­tims of crime, in­clud­ing those who were sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed.

"Rape is such a se­vere crime af­fect­ing a lot of young women who are to­tal­ly trau­ma­tised. "If they have lawyers ac­com­pa­ny­ing them to court, they will feel more com­fort­able. We will ex­plain to them the le­gal process and pro­tect them as much as pos­si­ble in the court­room process." Sankers­ingh said his law firm has as­sist­ed a few crime vic­tims so far, giv­ing them ad­vice and sup­port to help iden­ti­fy per­pe­tra­tors in ID pa­rades.

"We have seen in ac­tu­al prac­tice vic­tims re­fus­ing to at­tend ID pa­rades be­cause they were afraid. When we of­fered to ac­com­pa­ny them, they agreed to go," Sankers­ingh re­called. He said his firm was con­sid­er­ing work­ing with MPs and coun­cil­lors, who would be in a po­si­tion to re­fer crime vic­tims to his firm.

"It is dif­fi­cult to co-or­di­nate this ac­tiv­i­ty on our own. MPs can co-or­di­nate it and con­tact the lawyers," he sug­gest­ed. Sankers­ingh said he did not be­lieve the po­lice had been han­dling sex­u­al-of­fences cas­es bet­ter than in the past. "No, I don't think po­lice of­fi­cers are ad­e­quate­ly trained to meet these kinds of chal­lenges," he said, re­spond­ing to ques­tions. "The main chal­lenge is un­der­stand­ing the trau­ma vic­tims go through and their great re­luc­tance to go to court.

"The po­lice need to be ex­treme­ly sen­si­tive about this, but I don't see that hap­pen­ing much." Mar­i­on Tay­lor, di­rec­tor/board mem­ber of the Rape Cri­sis Cen­tre (RCC), said pro-bono rep­re­sen­ta­tion by at­tor­neys for rape vic­tims should be en­cour­aged. "Es­pe­cial­ly since most sur­vivors of rape are not fi­nan­cial­ly equipped to re­tain the ser­vices of lawyers," she said.

Asked if she felt the po­lice were han­dling sex­u­al-of­fences cas­es bet­ter and whether they were trained, Tay­lor said, "In the late 1980s and ear­ly 1990s, the RCC trained and sen­si­tised po­lice of­fi­cers on how to treat with sur­vivors. "What is need­ed again is for the RCC?to re­turn to the train­ing room of the po­lice."

Asked why the train­ing was stopped, Tay­lor replied, "I sup­pose it was stopped be­cause those in charge did not see it as a ne­ces­si­ty or a re­quire­ment." But she added, "If of­fi­cers are not prop­er­ly trained to treat with is­sues of this na­ture, this can fur­ther trau­ma­tise the sur­vivor, in that in­sen­si­tive state­ments and ques­tions can be made or asked."

On the role of mag­is­trates, Tay­lor said, "The role of mag­is­trates is to make de­ci­sions. Yes, they are trained. It is what is pre­sent­ed to them and in what man­ner.