Resh­ma Ra­goonath

A south Trinidad teenag­er, who is ac­cused of rap­ing a 20-year-old vi­su­al­ly im­paired woman, yes­ter­day was placed on $100,000 bail.Ramd­han Sookram, 18, ap­peared be­fore San Fer­nan­do Sec­ond Court mag­is­trate Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds yes­ter­day, charged with the in­dictable of­fence.Sookram, who was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Sasha Singh, was ar­rest­ed by WPC Ce­de­no and charged with hav­ing sex­u­al in­ter­course with the woman against her will some­time be­tween Au­gust 9 and 10, 2011.The mag­is­trate or­dered Sookram to stay away from the vic­tim when she grant­ed the bail. She warned him not to speak to the woman, her rel­a­tives or friends."You are not to con­tact her by elec­tron­ic means, nei­ther your rel­a­tives, friends or well-wish­ers. If any con­tact what­so­ev­er is made bail will be re­voked," Ram­sumair-Hinds said.Pros­e­cu­tor Ram­dath Phillip asked for con­di­tions to be placed on the bail.

Ram­sumair-Hinds grant­ed Sookram the bail to be ap­proved by a Clerk of the Peace. She re­ject­ed Sookram's par­ents as sure­ty.The mag­is­trate al­so or­dered, as a con­di­tion, that Sookram re­port to the near­est po­lice sta­tion on Mon­days, Wednes­days and Sat­ur­days, be­tween 6 am and 8 pm. The mat­ter was ad­journed to Sep­tem­ber 13.In a sep­a­rate mat­ter, 28-year-old Mara­bel­la res­i­dent Steve Flem­ming was re­mand­ed to St Ann's Hos­pi­tal af­ter he ap­peared in court charged with rape.Flem­ming, who was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Ja­son Jack­son, ap­peared be­fore the same mag­is­trate, Ram­sumair-Hinds, in the San Fer­nan­do Sec­ond Court charged with the Au­gust 11 of­fence.The 28-year-old was ar­rest­ed by WPC O'Con­nor and charged with hav­ing sex­u­al in­ter­course with the vic­tim against her will at Union Road, Mara­bel­la.Jack­son, in his ap­pli­ca­tion for bail, said Flem­ming had one con­vic­tion and one pend­ing mat­ter. He said his client had a psy­chi­atric prob­lem and was an out-pa­tient of the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.Jack­son said he had dif­fi­cul­ty in get­ting in­struc­tions from his client be­cause of his "men­tal state."The mag­is­trate replied: "He has shown some signs that he is un­able to un­der­stand seem­ing­ly ba­sic par­tic­u­lars of the charge. Out of an abun­dance of cau­tion I am re­mand­ing him to St Ann's."Flem­ming will reap­pear in court on Au­gust 29.