“I’m not say­ing he is not a changed per­son now, but it does not take away from the fact that he did hor­ri­ble things to in­no­cent chil­dren.”

This was the com­ment made yes­ter­day by the 39-old-man who, as a child over 20 years ago, blew the whis­tle on the preda­tor who al­leged­ly abused more than 30 boys at the St Do­minic’s Chil­dren’s Home in Bel­mont, af­ter read­ing the T&T Guardian’s ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with the man, ti­tled “I’m a changed man.”

In that in­ter­view, pub­lished yes­ter­day, the now 51-year-old man, who was named as the mo­les­ter of the boys then, de­nied all the ac­cu­sa­tions lev­elled against him, la­belling them as “pro­pa­gan­da and mis­chie­vous­ness.”

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, the ac­cused abuser said 20 years was a long time and a lot can change in that pe­ri­od. And he not­ed that he has al­so changed.

But these com­ments are not sit­ting well with the main wit­ness against him.

Yes­ter­day, he re­ject­ed the al­leged abuser’s calls for for­give­ness.

“I have read the ar­ti­cle with re­spect to the state­ments giv­en by this per­pe­tra­tor. I am not us­ing the word al­leged per­pe­tra­tor and I am not re­fer­ring to my­self as an al­leged vic­tim, I am a vic­tim and he is a per­pe­tra­tor,” he said.

“I can re­mem­ber every sin­gle thing that hap­pened as though it hap­pened yes­ter­day de­spite it be­ing more than 20 years ago,” he added.

The vic­tim said he was “ap­palled, an­gry, up­set and hurt” by the al­leged abuser’s re­sponse.

“It is all well and good to move on with your life but there is ac­tu­al­ly no re­morse for what he did. There is no con­sid­er­a­tion to the ef­fect of what he would have done to me as a vic­tim and per­haps the oth­er vic­tims,” he said.

The vic­tim said he nev­er knew of the 1997 Robert Sab­ga re­port as a child.

“I did not know about the Sab­ga re­port, I on­ly found out about it re­cent­ly. But what I do know is what hap­pened to me as a child and the home at his hand un­der his care, his watch, that is what I know,” he said.

“I agree that there comes a time for for­give­ness et cetera but at the end of the day, he was nev­er held ac­count­able for his ac­tions.”

In­stead of re­hash­ing what hap­pened over 20 years ago, the al­leged abuser said the au­thor­i­ties should fo­cus on what is cur­rent­ly go­ing on at the chil­dren’s homes across the coun­try.

But his vic­tim had a dif­fer­ing view.

“While it is cor­rect that they should fo­cus on what is hap­pen­ing as well in the homes now too, it does not mean we should for­get what he did to me and per­haps oth­ers 20 years ago,” he said.

“Why now? Why the out­cry? Be­cause you need to be held ac­count­able for your ac­tions. If you are born again, you are bap­tised in­to the sea of for­get­ful­ness that is all well and good but at the end of the day, you still have to be held ac­count­able for your ac­tions. If I do some­thing wrong, I am will­ing to stand the con­se­quence for my ac­tions re­gard­less of whether or not I turned over a new leaf, so turn­ing over a new leaf does not mean that you are not li­able for what you did.”

The vic­tim said if his abuser feels as though the re­cent me­dia cov­er­age is meant to tar­nish his name, there is le­gal re­course he can take.

“I am just say­ing that I am hap­py that the mere fact the Sab­ga re­port be­came pub­lic the po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ing and are do­ing what they are do­ing, so I am hap­py and sat­is­fied about that. Per­haps there may be some clo­sure for the vic­tims in­clud­ing my­self and I am hope­ful,” he said.

So far, six wit­ness­es have pro­vid­ed state­ments to of­fi­cers in­ves­ti­gat­ing the mat­ter.

For now, how­ev­er, the al­leged abuser may have re­opened some old wounds in his vic­tim with his lat­est com­ments to Guardian Me­dia.

“What he said (about in­sub­stan­tial ev­i­dence) is a slap in the face be­cause he knows bet­ter be­cause the po­lice nev­er dealt with the mat­ter,” the vic­tim said.

“He was en­trust­ed with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of look­ing af­ter us, of nur­tur­ing us, he abused that priv­i­lege and au­thor­i­ty that was placed in him when he com­mit­ted these heinous acts against de­fence­less and in­no­cent chil­dren and now wants to speak as though he didn’t do any­thing.”

Po­lice are said to be close to com­plet­ing their in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter.