An­na-Lisa Paul

The Po­lice Ser­vice is ap­peal­ing to mem­bers of the pub­lic to once again co­op­er­ate with the au­thor­i­ties to help in re­duc­ing crime.

Speak­ing dur­ing the first me­dia brief­ing to be held this year at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain, pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer act­ing ASP Michael Pierre said the me­dia and the pub­lic had both played a part in re­duc­ing road car­nage.

At­tribut­ing the de­cline to a con­cen­trat­ed pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion cam­paign, Pierre urged the me­dia and pub­lic to again join hands to as­sist in the re­duc­tion of il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.

Un­will­ing to di­vulge what plans the Po­lice Ser­vice were set to in­tro­duce to com­bat se­ri­ous crime in the year ahead, Pierre said the au­thor­i­ties would be im­ple­ment­ing cer­tain mea­sures.

Ques­tioned about the spate of mur­ders which had tak­en place since the start of the year, Pierre said sev­en had been record­ed up to mid­day yes­ter­day, whilst 15 were record­ed for the same pe­ri­od last year.

Pressed to com­ment on the deaths of Jodel Ram­nath, six, and Alv­ina Warn­er, 68–both of Beetham Gar­dens who were both hit by stray bul­lets dur­ing the fire­works cel­e­bra­tions on Old Year's Night–Pierre said no ar­rests had yet been made as the in­ci­dents were still un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted that while the po­lice would like to see a gen­er­al re­duc­tion in the use of fire­works, they were very con­cerned about the crim­i­nal el­e­ments who con­tin­ued to fur­ther pro­mote the use of il­le­gal weapons dur­ing times of such cel­e­bra­tions.

Turn­ing his at­ten­tion to the op­er­a­tions of the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit (CPU), Pierre said the new en­ti­ty had been hard at work dur­ing the past eight months, as they in­ves­ti­gat­ed re­ports of abuse against mi­nors.

Al­so present yes­ter­day was act­ing Sgt Valar­ie Hospedales of the CPU, who re­vealed that dur­ing the pe­ri­od May 2015 to De­cem­ber 2015, there had been 1,358 re­ports of crimes com­mit­ted against chil­dren.Of this num­ber, 500 re­ports were of a sex­u­al na­ture which in­clud­ed sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion and sex­u­al touch­ing.

Man­dat­ed un­der the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty Act No. 46.10 to en­gage in a col­lab­o­ra­tive re­la­tion­ship to en­sure the care and pro­tec­tion of the na­tion's chil­dren, the CPU's pri­ma­ry role and func­tion is to in­ves­ti­gate mat­ters of a sex­u­al na­ture, phys­i­cal abuse, aban­don­ment/ne­glect and ill treat­ment of chil­dren, Hospedales ex­plained.

Whilst the CPU is re­spon­si­ble for in­ves­ti­gat­ing the crim­i­nal as­pect of such re­ports per­pe­trat­ed against chil­dren, the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty's re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly en­gage in psy­cho-so­cial in­ter­ven­tions, which as­sist the child to main­tain a sense of sta­bil­i­ty in his/her life.

Asked if there had been any con­vic­tions in mat­ters be­fore the CPU, both Pierre and Hospedales said no as in­ves­ti­ga­tions were con­tin­u­ing in­to many of the re­ports.

Re­in­forc­ing that the le­gal age of con­sent was now 18 years and over–and not 16 years and over as be­fore–Hospedales warned that sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion for sex­u­al grat­i­fi­ca­tion did not on­ly re­fer to rape or bug­gery, but al­so to the pen­e­tra­tion of all bod­i­ly ori­fices of the child in­clu­sive of the nose, mouth and ears.

The po­lice record­ed a 24.6 per cent de­crease in sex­u­al of­fences and a 12.5 per cent de­cline in re­ports of sex­u­al in­de­cen­cy against vic­tims for the pe­ri­od 2014-2015.