SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

A 42-year-old man was de­nied bail yes­ter­day when he ap­peared vir­tu­al­ly in court charged with sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ing his three-year-old step daugh­ter.

The man will not be iden­ti­fied to pro­tect the iden­ti­ty of the vic­tim.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, a re­port was made to the East­ern Di­vi­sion Child Pro­tec­tion Unit (CPU) that some­time be­tween May 31 and Ju­ly 1, 2019, the man forced the child per­form oral sex on him.

The in­ci­dent was al­leged­ly wit­nessed by the child’s broth­er, who lat­er told his grand­moth­er. The woman then made a re­port to the po­lice.

On Wednes­day, WPC Williams-James charged the man with one count of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a child and abuse of trust and fa­mil­ial re­la­tion­ship.

In the San­gre Grande Mag­is­trates’ Court yes­ter­day, the man was re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody and the mat­ter ad­journed to No­vem­ber 25, 2021.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, head of the CPU, act­ing Supt Claire Guy-Al­leyne urged the pub­lic to re­port any in­stances of sus­pect­ed abuse to po­lice.

Guy-Al­leyne head­ed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion against the man, lead­ing to his ar­rest on Wednes­day.

“I am urg­ing any­one who has in­for­ma­tion about chil­dren be­ing abused, phys­i­cal­ly or sex­u­al­ly, to come for­ward with the in­for­ma­tion—whether you are a fam­i­ly mem­ber, rel­a­tive, neigh­bour, any­one who has in­for­ma­tion, come for­ward with the re­ports and let the mat­ters be in­ves­ti­gat­ed,” Guy-Al­leyne said.

Two weeks ago, Guy-Al­leyne told Guardian Me­dia there had been al­most 1,800 cas­es of child sex­u­al abuse re­port­ed to her unit be­tween Jan­u­ary 1, 2020 and Sep­tem­ber 31, 2021. That fig­ure rep­re­sents 925 re­ports made in 2020 and 797 re­ports made be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and Sep­tem­ber 31, 2021.

Guy-Al­leyne said from those num­bers, 142 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed with 377 charges be­ing laid in 2020 and 166 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and 407 charges laid so far in 2021.

She said there had been a marked in­crease in re­ports of child sex­u­al abuse but her of­fi­cers were work­ing much hard­er to bring abusers to ac­count.

Guy-Al­leyne said sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion was one of the most preva­lent of­fences and in more cas­es, the vic­tim knew the per­pe­tra­tor. She said there was a de­crease in re­ports in 2021 but an in­crease in the num­ber of peo­ple be­ing ar­rest­ed.

She re­mind­ed the pub­lic that they have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­port sus­pect­ed cas­es of child abuse as man­dat­ed in Sec­tion 31:A of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act.

At that time, Guy-Al­leyne said among the ob­sta­cles fac­ing her unit was the re­fusal of some par­ents to al­low their chil­dren to be in­ter­viewed by the po­lice once a re­port has been made.

She al­so said there was no time frame placed on in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to sex­u­al abuse, as vic­tims were of­ten too trau­ma­tised to talk about their abuse.

“Some cas­es we are able to wrap up in two-twos and there are some cas­es that are so in­tri­cate and the trau­ma that the child would have sus­tained, we may have to of­fer the child some psy­cho-so­cial sup­port through the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, as well as the Vic­tim and Wit­ness Sup­port Unit and then we are able to gath­er the ev­i­dence or the state­ment from the child be­cause that trau­ma is re­al,” Guy-Al­leyne said.

As she has said many times, Guy-Al­leyne said her mantra is “be­lieve your child.”

“We are ask­ing care­givers, par­ents and guardians to be very vig­i­lant in these times and once a child comes for­ward to re­port a sex­u­al as­sault, take it very se­ri­ous­ly and be­lieve that child and bring that child to the po­lice so we can in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter,” she said.

If you are abused or you sus­pect a child is be­ing abused, there are a num­ber of ways you can make a re­port- through the TTPS’ on­line re­port­ing plat­form, by call­ing 800-TIPS, 999, 555, any po­lice sta­tion or use the TTPS app or their so­cial me­dia plat­form.