JENSEN LA VENDE

Gy­rat­ing on some­one with­out their per­mis­sion is con­sid­ered an as­sault and in­cit­ing oth­ers to do so can be con­sid­ered aid­ing and abet­ting the crime.

This is the warn­ing from the pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer of the po­lice ser­vice, ASP Michael Jack­man at yes­ter­day’s week­ly me­dia brief­ing.

Last week, Jack­man stat­ed that the un­want­ed touch by some­one, be it in a wine at a Car­ni­val fete or oth­er­wise is an of­fence. His state­ment prompt­ed ridicule on so­cial me­dia with some peo­ple even draft­ing “per­mis­sion slips” to wine for Car­ni­val.

Last Sat­ur­day, so­ca star Machel Mon­tano told par­ty­go­ers at Stumped cool­er fete at Queen’s Park Oval: “They say yuh could get lock up for thief­ing a wine. Al­lyuh for­get that, find some­body to jam. This is Car­ni­val. They will have to lock up the whole of Trinidad and To­ba­go”.

The fol­low­ing day Mon­tano re­cant­ed his state­ment and called on men in par­tic­u­lar to cre­ate a safe en­vi­ron­ment for women and re­spect women and seek con­sent.

Asked about in­cit­ing some­one to com­mit an as­sault yes­ter­day, Jack­man said that of­fence does not ex­ist, how­ev­er, there is a law against aid­ing and abet­ting some­one to com­mit an as­sault.

He made no ref­er­ence to any­one in his com­ment.

“Any­time some­one says by word or by ac­tion that they do not wish to en­gage in that phys­i­cal trans­ac­tion then the oth­er par­ty who is at the time of or en­gag­ing in that ac­tiv­i­ty should stop im­me­di­ate­ly. If they should con­tin­ue the law states that an as­sault would have tak­en place. No means no in any lan­guage,” Jack­man said.