Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

The pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Hock­ey Board, Roger St Rose, has been charged by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice with two counts of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a boy un­der the age of 16 years.

The 66-year-old is ac­cused of per­pe­trat­ing the crim­i­nal act over three years, start­ing in 2021.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that a sec­ond man, a 38-year-old busi­ness­man—who has not been named by po­lice out of con­cerns that the vic­tim may be in­di­rect­ly iden­ti­fied—was al­so charged with sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a mi­nor—the same vic­tim. It’s al­leged that the busi­ness­man com­mit­ted the acts, start­ing ear­li­er this year.

TTPS Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er Joanne Archie ad­dressed the charges against St Rose, say­ing, “The in­ci­dent al­leged oc­curred on a date un­known dur­ing the pe­ri­od 30-11-2021 and a date un­know­ing dur­ing the pe­ri­od 30-11-2022 to 1-1-2023. He ap­peared at the 7th Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate Court be­fore Her Wor­ship Mag­is­trate Ba­boolal-Gafoor.”

The in­ci­dent(s) al­leged­ly oc­curred at the home of the ac­cused in Diego Mar­tin.

St Rose was grant­ed bail with a sure­ty in the sum of $250,000, with a cash al­ter­na­tive of $25,000. The court mat­ter was ad­journed to Feb­ru­ary 6, 2024.

Ear­li­er this week, the Hock­ey Board ad­vised mem­bers and mem­ber clubs in a no­tice that St Rose had tak­en a leave of ab­sence.

The no­tice, sent by board mem­ber Reyah Richard­son, said dur­ing his ab­sence, John Lewis, TTHB first vice pres­i­dent will act as pres­i­dent.

The T&T Hock­ey Board is re­spon­si­ble for pro­mot­ing, de­vel­op­ing and ad­min­is­trat­ing the sport of field hock­ey at all lev­els.

St Rose, who rep­re­sent­ed Malvern Sports Club, was elect­ed as the new TTHB pres­i­dent at its 24th An­nu­al Coun­cil Meet­ing (ACM) in No­vem­ber 2021. He re­placed Dou­glas Ca­ma­cho as the board’s head.

St Rose has a dis­tin­guished back­ground in hock­ey of­fi­ci­at­ing. He was the first um­pire from T&T to of­fi­ci­ate at the Olympics (in 1996), the Cham­pi­ons League and the In­ter­na­tion­al Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion World Cup.

St Rose is al­so a mem­ber of the Of­fi­cials Com­mit­tee of the Fed­er­a­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Hock­ey (FIH) and the Um­pires Com­mit­tee of the Pan Amer­i­can Hock­ey Fed­er­a­tion (PAHF).

He al­so served as a Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Prop­er­ty De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NIPDEC) le­gal of­fi­cer.