A 23-year-old maxi taxi con­duc­tor was grant­ed $150,000 bail by a Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate to­day, af­ter be­ing charged with the sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a 13-year-old girl.

Jaquan Ed­wards, who re­sides in Four Roads, Diego Mar­tin, was al­so or­dered to stay 100 feet away from the girl and to have ab­solute­ly no con­tact with her as part of his bail con­di­tions.

Ed­wards, whose mat­ter was post­poned to Au­gust 10th, 2021, will al­so have to re­port to his lo­cal po­lice sta­tion twice for the week.

The ac­cused was ar­rest­ed and charged by WPC Beck­les, of the West­ern Di­vi­sion Child Pro­tec­tion Unit (CPU) on Ju­ly 12th fol­low­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion sur­round­ing the de­tails of a po­lice re­port in Feb­ru­ary 2020 in which a 13-year-old girl al­leged that she was picked up by a man in a maxi taxi and tak­en to a res­i­dence in West Trinidad.

While at the res­i­dence, the man re­port­ed­ly per­formed sex­u­al in­ter­course on her.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tion, spear­head­ed by W/Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice, Claire Guy-Al­leyne, cul­mi­nat­ed with the charge of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a child be­ing laid against Ed­wards.

His ar­rest was made pos­si­ble through field op­er­a­tions by the West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force led by Cpl Khan and sup­port­ed by ASP Ram­nar­ine and Sgt (Ag.) James.