A 30-year-old Tu­na­puna man ac­cused of traf­fick­ing a mi­nor and in­cit­ing her in­to pros­ti­tu­tion has been grant­ed $2 mil­lion bail.

An­tho­ny Smith, a bar man­ag­er from Tu­na­puna Road, El Do­ra­do, was giv­en the hefty bail af­ter he ap­peared be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Mar­cia Ay­ers-Cae­sar in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court yes­ter­day to an­swer 21 crim­i­nal charges al­leged­ly com­mit­ted against the mi­nor be­tween No­vem­ber 2014 and Sep­tem­ber last year.

The vic­tim's name, age and na­tion­al­i­ty were with­held by Ay­ers-Cae­sar as re­quired by the Chil­dren's Act and Traf­fick­ing in Per­sons Act un­der which the charges were laid. The leg­is­la­tion de­fines a child as any­one un­der the age of 18.

The fa­ther of three, who stood silent­ly with his head bowed in the pris­on­ers' en­clo­sure for the du­ra­tion of the hear­ing, was not called up­on to plead to the charges as they were laid in­dictably.

He was charged with five of­fences for caus­ing or in­cit­ing a child in­to pros­ti­tu­tion and 12 for sex­u­al­ly pen­e­trat­ing the child, as well as three charges for com­mit­ting com­mon as­sault against the vic­tim. He was al­so ac­cused of re­cruit­ing the child for the pur­pose of hu­man traf­fick­ing.

The charges are al­leged to have oc­curred at un­known dates dur­ing the al­most one-year pe­ri­od at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing a house at Dook­ie Lane, Cane Farm, Arou­ca; Orop­une Gar­dens, Pi­ar­co, and once at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain.

In ap­ply­ing for bail for his client, Smith's lawyer Criston J Williams at­tempt­ed to as­sure Ay­ers-Cae­sar his client would not ab­scond as he not­ed his client had made him­self avail­able to po­lice since the al­leged vic­tim was found by po­lice at the Cane Farm prop­er­ty last Sep­tem­ber.

He al­so re­quest­ed that Ay­ers-Cae­sar grant a cash al­ter­na­tive, as he said his client was the sole provider for his three chil­dren – ages five to 11 – and his wife, who is still in po­lice cus­tody in re­la­tion to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor, In­sp Richard Tay­lor, was op­posed to bail as he claimed Smith would be a flight risk due to the se­ri­ous na­ture of the charges.

"It is our in­for­ma­tion that the ac­cused has still been in con­tact with the vic­tim and we would like to en­sure this does not con­tin­ue," Tay­lor said.Ay­ers-Cae­sar agreed that he should be grant­ed bail but de­nied his re­quest for a less­er cash al­ter­na­tive.

As part of his bail con­di­tions, Smith was or­dered to sur­ren­der his pass­port, to re­port to po­lice twice week­ly and to not come with­in 100 me­tres of the vic­tim and to re­frain from con­tact­ing her via cell­phone or so­cial me­dia. He is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Sean Sobers.

Smith is ex­pect­ed to reap­pear in court on Feb­ru­ary 1.