JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 24, 2025

18 years in jail for constable who raped, imprisoned teen

by

Sascha Wilson
2112 days ago
20191011

Po­lice Con­sta­ble Vishram Ra­goo has been jailed for 18 years for the rape, sex­u­al gre­vi­ous as­sault, false im­pris­on­ment and as­sault of a 17-year-old girl.

In pass­ing sen­tence, this morn­ing, Jus­tice Car­la Brown An­toine said the ag­gra­vat­ing fac­tors in­clud­ed that he was a po­lice of­fi­cer and he been sex­u­al­ly abus­ing the girl since she was 14 years old. She was al­so two months preg­nant but al­so lost the ba­by a few days af­ter she was sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed. Ev­i­dence was led that in that at­tack he placed his hand in­to her pri­vate part and used a knife and gun to threat­en her.

Not­ing the preva­lence of abuse against fe­male mi­nors, the judge said the court has a du­ty to pro­tect them.

Ra­goo, 40, of Freeport who was last at­tached to the Ch­agua­nas CID Ch­agua­nas was charged with a to­tal of six charges but a ju­ry pre­sid­ing in the San Fer­nan­do Sec­ond Crim­i­nal As­sizes found him not guilty on one of the griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault charges on Ju­ly 15.

The pros­e­cu­tion’s case, led by state at­tor­neys Veon­na Neale-Mon­roe and Collin El­bourne, was that the of­fi­cer was hav­ing a "re­la­tion­ship" with the vic­tim since she was 14.

Fol­low­ing a re­port made against him by the teenag­er, he was charged by In­sp Shaun Craig on June 15, 2008.

The ju­ry found him guilty of com­mit­ing griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault and com­mon as­sault against the girl on Feb­ru­ary 4, 2008.

He was al­so found guilty of rape, as­sault oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm and false im­pris­on­ment on June 12, 2008. The crimes were com­mit­ted in Freeport.

Dur­ing the tri­al, which be­gan on May 21, the ju­ry al­so heard an au­dio record­ing from the vic­tim’s phone to sup­port some of the al­le­ga­tions she made against the of­fi­cer.

The State led ev­i­dence from 10 wit­ness­es while Ra­goo opt­ed not to give ev­i­dence.

He, how­ev­er, called six wit­ness­es in­clud­ing two po­lice con­sta­bles, his wife and ex-wife, in his de­fence.

Ra­goo who had ten years of ser­vice was out on bail but tak­en in­to cus­tody af­ter he was found guilty.

Ra­goo was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Sel­wyn Ram­lal.

In to­tal, he was sen­tenced to 43 years, but the judge or­dered that the sen­tences run con­cur­rent­ly.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored