Sascha Wil­son

A pas­tor has ap­peared in court on a charge of sex­u­al­ly touch­ing a mi­nor at a church more than a year ago.

Rus­sel An­drews, 59, of Princes Town, was grant­ed $100,000 ap­proval bail with a cash bail al­ter­na­tive of $25,000 dur­ing a vir­tu­al court ap­pear­ance be­fore Princes Town Mag­is­trate In­di­ra Misir-Go­sine.

The vic­tim is due to sit the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment Ex­am­i­na­tion (SEA) to­day.

At the time of the al­leged in­ci­dent, she was 11-years-old. The charge al­leged that on De­cem­ber 31, 2019, at Sixth Com­pa­ny Am­bas­sadors of Christ Church in New Grant he sex­u­al­ly touched the girl.

A re­port was made in Feb­ru­ary 2020, and fol­low­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions he was charged by WPC April Hull of the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit on Tues­day.

The court heard that the pas­tor was asked by the child’s grand­moth­er to speak to her about her be­hav­iour. But, the girl al­leged that the pas­tor touched her pri­vate parts.

Pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Shazeed Mo­hammed did not ob­ject to bail as he had no pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions or pend­ing mat­ters.

How­ev­er, he cit­ed the se­ri­ous­ness and preva­lence of the of­fence and asked for bail con­di­tions. The pas­tor was or­dered to stay 300 me­ters away from the vic­tim. The mat­ter was ad­journed to Ju­ly 28.