AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

A fe­male school teacher and male se­cu­ri­ty guard have been de­nied bail af­ter they ap­peared in court joint­ly charged with the sex­u­al as­sault of two 12-year-old fe­male pupils of a pri­vate pri­ma­ry school in east Trinidad.

The 46-year-old teacher and 35-year-old se­cu­ri­ty guard are joint­ly charged with sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion and one count of traf­fick­ing a mi­nor for sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion.

They ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate In­dra Ramoo-Haynes at the Tu­na­puna Mag­is­trates’ Court yes­ter­day.

The teacher is fac­ing a to­tal of nine charges, in­clud­ing sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion on the school com­pound, caus­ing or in­cit­ing a child to en­gage in sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty, one count of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion at a house in east Trinidad and traf­fick­ing a mi­nor for sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion.

The guard was al­so charged with one count of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of both mi­nors at a lo­ca­tion in Mal­abar be­tween Sep­tem­ber 1st and No­vem­ber 3rd, 2022.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS, a re­port was made to the po­lice by the prin­ci­pal of the ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion to the Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment on No­vem­ber 3.

Both mi­nors al­leged that they were sex­u­al­ly pen­e­trat­ed on the school com­pound and sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed at a lo­ca­tion in Mal­abar be­tween Sep­tem­ber 1 and No­vem­ber 3.

Po­lice said fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions un­cov­ered a sex­u­al ex­ploita­tion ring in­volv­ing mi­nors.

The adults were ar­rest­ed fol­low­ing a search war­rant ex­er­cise.

The ex­er­cise was co­or­di­nat­ed by In­spec­tor Wayne Stan­ley and Sergeant Mar­lon Bish­op and con­duct­ed by WPC Kernisha Valere, all of the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion was al­so as­sist­ed by act­ing di­rec­tor of Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit Ki­moy Thomas and its of­fi­cers and mem­bers of the In­ter-Agency Task Force and Cy­ber Crime Unit.

The charges were laid on De­cem­ber 18, fol­low­ing the ad­vice of le­gal of­fi­cer Za­heer Ali.

The teacher and se­cu­ri­ty guard are ex­pect­ed to reap­pear in court on Jan­u­ary 16, 2023.

As­sis­tant Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, Crim­i­nal Di­vi­sion, Sharon Coop­er, who spear­head­ed the in­ves­ti­ga­tions, yes­ter­day said she hoped the lat­est charges will prompt more pupils to come for­ward if they have been abused at the in­sti­tu­tion.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly for a com­ment on the is­sue yes­ter­day. She con­demned all forms of abuse.

“Abuse of any kind is a trav­es­ty, worse when chil­dren are in­volved. If they are found guilty, I ex­pect that they will be dealt with to the full ex­tent of the law,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.

Mean­while, Na­tion­al Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Kevin David called for the reg­u­la­tion of pri­vate schools and for prop­er leg­is­la­tion of pri­vate ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions across the coun­try.

“There are a lot of things go­ing unchecked. We need to ac­tu­al­ly in­ves­ti­gate and look in­to these sorts of things, be­cause due to the fact that these in­sti­tu­tions go unchecked and un­reg­u­lat­ed, we will have these sort of things hap­pen­ing from time to time,” David told Guardian Me­dia.

But ac­cord­ing to Gads­by-Dol­ly, these in­ci­dents are un­for­tu­nate­ly not re­strict­ed to pri­vate schools alone.

“Teach­ers in pub­lic schools have al­so his­tor­i­cal­ly been ac­cused of sex­u­al mis­be­hav­iour to­wards stu­dents. There is no ev­i­dence that these ac­cu­sa­tions oc­cur more fre­quent­ly in pri­vate schools,” she said.

Steps to take af­ter sex­u­al as­sault

If you or some­one you know has been the vic­tim of as­sault/abuse, please know that you’re not alone.

Be sure to in­form an adult or some­one you trust and reach out to the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to make a re­port, seek sup­port and re­ceive ac­cess to safe ac­com­mo­da­tion.

Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Abuse Hot­line: 1 (868) 800-SAVE or 800 7283

TTPS: 999

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty Hot­line Num­bers: 996 / 1 (868) 800-2014

Abuse helpline: 800 7283

The Rape Cri­sis So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (RCS)

North: 627-7273

South: 657-5355

Re­mem­ber that you are not alone.