Ten held in TTPS child protection exercise

The Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment (SVD) of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has ar­rest­ed ten peo­ple and cleared 25 re­ports dur­ing a mul­ti-re­gion­al an­ti-crime ex­er­cise tar­get­ing of­fences against chil­dren and vul­ner­a­ble per­sons.

The op­er­a­tion, dubbed “Op­er­a­tion Bea­con”, was car­ried out across sev­er­al polic­ing di­vi­sions fol­low­ing what po­lice de­scribed as ex­ten­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions by SVD of­fi­cers.

In Re­gion One (Port of Spain, West­ern and North­ern di­vi­sions), four men aged 24, 28, 28 and 36 were ar­rest­ed. Two were lat­er charged with of­fences in­clud­ing sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion, sex­u­al touch­ing and as­sault oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm.

In Re­gion Two (Cen­tral Di­vi­sion), a 32-year-old man was ar­rest­ed and charged with sex­u­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion and in­cit­ing a child to en­gage in sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty.

Re­gion Three (South­ern and South-West­ern di­vi­sions) record­ed three ar­rests. Men aged 23, 36 and 64 were charged with of­fences in­clud­ing sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion, sex­u­al touch­ing and caus­ing or en­gag­ing a child in sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty.

In Re­gion Five (East­ern Di­vi­sion), two men aged 26 and 38 were ar­rest­ed and charged with sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion.

The ex­er­cise was led by Deputy Com­mis­sion­er Natasha George, As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er Richard Smith and Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent An­der­son Par­ri­man. Co­or­di­na­tion was han­dled by Su­per­in­ten­dent Dar­ryl Ram­dass, with sup­port from Woman As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent Avril Fran­cis and Woman In­spec­tor Sookram-Loutan.

Po­lice are urg­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to re­port abuse or sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty in­volv­ing chil­dren or vul­ner­a­ble per­sons through the near­est po­lice sta­tion or of­fi­cial re­port­ing chan­nels.