Joel Julien

joel.julien@guardian.co.tt

Twen­ty-five years af­ter be­ing named as the ac­cused abuser of more than 30 boys at the St Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home, a 51-year-old man was yes­ter­day ar­rest­ed by po­lice.

And he is ex­pect­ed to be charged for a slew of of­fences soon, sources told Guardian Me­dia.

It all start­ed yes­ter­day morn­ing when a team of of­fi­cers, led by Sgt Bap­tiste, went to the St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal and held the man.

Last week, po­lice went to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal in search of the man but were told he was on va­ca­tion. He re­turned to work this week but was sub­se­quent­ly trans­ferred to the St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal.

Hours af­ter he was held yes­ter­day, three wit­ness­es went to the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion, where the man was be­ing held, and pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fied him as their al­leged abuser.

This makes him the first per­son to be held aris­ing out of sex­u­al abuse al­le­ga­tions high­light­ed in the 1997 Robert Sab­ga-led task force re­port. That com­mit­tee re­viewed the op­er­a­tions of sev­er­al chil­dren’s homes and in­sti­tu­tions.

So far, in­ves­ti­ga­tors have re­ceived state­ments from five wit­ness­es nam­ing the man as their abuser.

The two oth­ers who did not go to the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day are said to be liv­ing over­seas.

The po­lice al­so reached out to oth­er vic­tims but they have de­clined to be in­ter­viewed, in­di­cat­ing that they have moved on with their lives and have fam­i­lies whom they do not want to find out what they went through at the home.

The sus­pect’s preda­to­ry be­hav­iour was out­lined in the re­port of the Sab­ga-led task force.

“A male mem­ber of staff (who was once a res­i­dent there) is al­leged to have per­pe­trat­ed mul­ti­ple sex­u­al acts with a num­ber of chil­dren up to the lat­ter part of 1995. These in­clud­ed forced bug­gery; en­cour­ag­ing boys to have sex with each oth­er while he watched; strip­ping and beat­ing the old­er boys while the younger ones looked on; en­cour­ag­ing the chil­dren to ‘play’ with him, etc,” the re­port stat­ed.

“He re­port­ed­ly hit a child who once told about the ‘rough play’ at night. One young boy fi­nal­ly dis­closed all and the al­leged per­pe­tra­tor was con­front­ed. He ad­mit­ted his ac­tions and ex­plained that he too had been abused at St. Do­minic’s,” the re­port added.

The home’s man­ag­er re­port­ed­ly asked the per­pe­tra­tor to vol­un­teer his res­ig­na­tion that day and all of his leave and oth­er en­ti­tle­ments were paid to him in full.

“The mat­ter was then prompt­ly swept un­der the car­pet and no coun­selling or fol­low up with the chil­dren in­volved was done, os­ten­si­bly to pro­tect the rep­u­ta­tion of the Home,” the re­port point­ed out.

“Amaz­ing­ly, oth­er than the ver­bal rep­ri­mand he re­ceived from the Sis­ter, and his con­struc­tive dis­missal there­after, very lit­tle else ap­pears to have been done about his ac­tions, ei­ther in terms of him get­ting pro­fes­sion­al help, or­—more im­por­tant­ly—any of the stag­ger­ing num­ber of chil­dren he mo­lest­ed get­ting help ei­ther (one child even wrote a let­ter to a staff mem­ber plead­ing for help).”

The re­port stat­ed that the “most as­ton­ish­ing” thing was that the “per­pe­tra­tor al­leged­ly got a let­ter of rec­om­men­da­tion from St Do­minic’s, and he is now re­port­ed­ly em­ployed at a health in­sti­tu­tion.”

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia last week, the sus­pect de­nied the al­le­ga­tions against him and said a lot can change in 20 years.

This, how­ev­er, did not sit well with one of his ac­cusers, who told the T&T Guardian that he was “ap­palled, an­gry, up­set, and hurt” by the man’s com­ments.

How­ev­er, while po­lice of­fi­cers have made sig­nif­i­cant head­way in­to the St Do­minic’s case fol­low­ing this ar­rest, sources told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that of­fi­cers are no longer pur­su­ing al­le­ga­tions of abuse at the St Mary’s Chil­dren’s Home in Tacarigua be­cause none of the al­leged past vic­tims have come for­ward to speak with the po­lice.