$750,000 bail for man accused of sex assault in MP’s office

An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­[email protected]

The sus­pect at the heart of a sex­u­al in­ci­dent in­volv­ing a mi­nor, which re­port­ed­ly oc­curred in the of­fice of Ca­roni East MP Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Dr Rishad Seecher­an, has been charged with eight of­fences.

The sus­pect, who was ar­rest­ed on Ju­ly 31 by of­fi­cials of the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion fol­low­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions by the Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment (SVD), was grant­ed bail in the sum of $750,000 with sure­ty.

The mat­ter at­tract­ed sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic at­ten­tion af­ter it was high­light­ed by the vic­tim’s fa­ther two weeks ago on so­cial me­dia.

Fol­low­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions, the ac­cused was charged with eight of­fences un­der the Chil­dren’s Act, Chap­ter 46:01, as amend­ed by Act No. 12 of 2012.

The charges in­clude six counts of sex­u­al touch­ing of a child; one count of in­cit­ing a child to en­gage in sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty; and one count of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a child.

The in­ves­ti­ga­tions were spear­head­ed by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (In­ves­ti­ga­tions and In­tel­li­gence) Natasha George, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Richard Smith, Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment head Su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Reyes, and As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent Lei­th Jones. Gen­er­al su­per­vi­sion was pro­vid­ed by In­sp Ni­na Rawl­ins of the Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment, Re­gion II.

The ini­tial re­port on the in­ci­dent was made at the Cunu­pia Po­lice Sta­tion on May 28 and Sgt Allyson Joseph-Guer­ra, of the Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment - Re­gion II, was as­signed to con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­ga­tions on Ju­ly 22.

The in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cer for­mal­ly charged the ac­cused with the of­fences at the Gas­par­il­lo Po­lice Sta­tion on Mon­day and he ap­peared be­fore Mas­ter Tracey Vi­dale at the Ch­agua­nas Mas­ter’s Court on Tues­day.

The charges were laid in­dictably and he was not called up­on to en­ter a plea.

The ac­cused has been or­dered to re­main at least 200 feet away from the vic­tim; to re­frain from any di­rect or in­di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the vic­tim and to re­port to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion every Mon­day, Thurs­day and Sat­ur­day be­tween the hours of 6 am and 7 pm.

How­ev­er, while the ac­cused has ap­peared in court, his iden­ti­ty must be with­held to pro­tect the iden­ti­ty of the vic­tim due to the na­ture of the al­leged crime.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, an of­fi­cer close to the case said they re­mained com­mit­ted to pro­tect­ing the na­tion’s chil­dren and en­sur­ing that of­fend­ers are brought to jus­tice.

“We en­cour­age all cit­i­zens to re­main vig­i­lant and to re­port any sus­pect­ed abuse or crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. If you see some­thing, say some­thing,” the fe­male of­fi­cer said.