Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Six men, in­clud­ing three po­lice of­fi­cers, have been freed of hu­man traf­fick­ing and child sex­u­al as­sault of­fences due to is­sues in pros­e­cut­ing their case.

Act­ing In­spec­tor Ra­jesh Gokool, PC Richard Lal­be­har­ry, PC Vi­cash Ram­ta­hal, busi­ness­man Matthew Ross, An­drew George and Venezue­lan na­tion­al Julio Perez, were freed of the charges as their case came up for hear­ing be­fore High Court Mas­ter Mar­garet Sookraj-Goswa­mi, yes­ter­day morn­ing.

All six men were ac­cused of coun­selling a gang and re­cruit­ing, trans­port­ing, trans­fer­ring and har­bour­ing a child for ex­ploita­tion.

Gokool, George, Ross and Perez were sep­a­rate­ly charged for traf­fick­ing in chil­dren for ex­ploita­tion.

Gokool. George and Ross were charged with re­ceiv­ing a ben­e­fit from traf­fick­ing a child, while Gokool and George were charged with sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a child.

Gokool and Ram­ta­hal were charged with mis­be­hav­ing in pub­lic of­fice by trans­port­ing and har­bour­ing a child for sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion.

Ram­ta­hal was al­so charged for pay­ing for sex­u­al ser­vices with a child.

When the case, which stemmed from an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in ear­ly 2020, came up for hear­ing, Mas­ter Sookraj-Goswa­mi point­ed out that State pros­e­cu­tors had failed to abide by dead­lines she had set for the fil­ing of ev­i­dence in­clud­ing proof of the al­leged vic­tims' ages.

Pros­e­cu­tor Danille Thomp­son sought to ex­plain the de­lay and ap­plied for an ex­ten­sion.

Thomp­son al­so re­port­ed­ly in­di­cat­ed that she would al­so be mak­ing an ap­pli­ca­tion to ad­duce fur­ther ev­i­dence against the group.

The ac­cused men's lawyers in­clud­ing at­tor­ney Kevin Rati­ram, who rep­re­sent­ed Gokool, all ob­ject­ed to the ap­pli­ca­tions which they not­ed was re­quired in writ­ing in ad­vance of the dead­line elaps­ing.

Rati­ram al­so point­ed out that the court had re­ject­ed oth­er ev­i­dence over the vic­tims' ages pre­vi­ous­ly due to le­gal is­sues.

Mas­ter Sookraj-Goswa­mi agreed as she not­ed that doc­u­men­tary ev­i­dence, such as birth cer­tifi­cates were nec­es­sary to prove one of the es­sen­tial el­e­ments of the of­fences.

Thomp­son al­so re­quest­ed that Mas­ter Sookraj-Goswa­mi al­so re­quest­ed that the group be com­mit­ted to stand tri­al for some of the of­fences that did not re­quire the ev­i­dence.

Rati­ram again ob­ject­ed as he claimed that Thomp­son should have made the sug­ges­tion in writ­ten sub­mis­sions and give he and his col­leagues ad­e­quate time to re­spond.

Mas­ter Sookraj-Goswa­mi re­fused to con­sid­er any al­ter­nate com­mit­tal.

Thomp­son re­port­ed­ly in­di­cat­ed that the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) would con­sid­er ap­peal­ing the out­come.

In March 2020, Gokool was ar­rest­ed by col­leagues in re­la­tion to an­oth­er case and was kept de­tained for sev­en days be­fore be­ing re­leased. Al­though he was lat­er re­ar­rest­ed and charged, he still filed a law­suit over his ini­tial de­ten­tion.

Gokool's case was up­held and he was award­ed $100,000 in dam­ages.

The charges from that case were even­tu­al­ly dis­missed by a mag­is­trate, ear­li­er this year, af­ter Rati­ram made a no-case sub­mis­sion over a lack of ev­i­dence link­ing Gokool to the crime.

Lal­be­har­ry was rep­re­sent­ed by Chris Ram­lal, while Alex­ia Romero and Andiesa Weste rep­re­sent­ed George.

Ram­ta­hal was rep­re­sent­ed by Ravi Ra­j­coomar, SC, and Tiffany Ali, while Kei­th Beck­les rep­re­sent­ed Ross. Perez was rep­re­sent­ed by Ar­ron Smith.