Man accused of impregnating teen three times charged
THE police unit responsible for investigating s*xual and other abuses of children have arrested and charged a man accused of impregnating a teenage girl in the Lawrence Tavern community of St Andrew.
The accused was charged by officers assigned to the Centre For Investigation Of S*xual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) with having s*xual intercourse with a person under the age of 16 years.
On Friday, Detective Inspector Anderson at the unit told the Jamaica Observer that the man was granted bail, but that it was not known if he had taken up the offer.
He made his first court appearance on July 14 after being arrested in June. He is to return to court on September 13.
The Observer first reported the story on June 12 after the aunt of the teen disclosed that she had been impregnated by the man at the age of 14.
The woman also said her niece was forced to lie about her age whenever she visited the clinic. She is currently pregnant with her third child for the accused, who is believed to be in his early 50s.
“She tell them she was 17, which was not true, and now she is pregnant again for him at 17, but a tell people she a 21. She not even giving dem her real name, so you know that child won’t even have her right name on the birth certificate. I tell my sister to leave but she said she not moving to country. So that is the result,” the woman told the Observer in June.
CISOCA was contacted by the Observer about the matter, an investigation was launched and the man taken into custody.
Anderson, however, pointed out that the outcome of the case is dependent on whether or not the victim is willing to cooperate with the police.
“She is his babymother, so I don’t know which way the halls of justice will swing. Oftentimes when you have cases like this, it’s all dependent on the complainant. Every action that police take is dependent on how interested the complainants are,” Anderson said.
The teen’s mother, who, it is alleged, was aware of her abuse, has since fled the community, fearing that she, too, could be arrested and charged by the police.
“She say me bring down problems inna her life and she don’t talk to me now. She leave too, because she don’t want dem lock her up,” the aunt told the Observer.
She said her sister had insisted that she was not willing to report the matter, which she believed would’ve disrupted her life.
In the meantime, the woman is to receive a two-bedroom house after she was forced to flee the community after the accused in the aforementioned case and his cronies allegedly issued death and rape threats to her and her 13-year-old daughter.
The mother of 10 had shared with the Observer in June that the accused and self-proclaimed area don allegedly attempted to s*xually groom her child who was only nine years old at the time. She said the incident was reported to the police, which resulted in a court case. The woman said nothing came of the case, which was followed by consistent threats from men in the area who are said to be a part of this so-called don’s entourage.
Not willing to give up her daughter to the accused, she fled to rural Jamaica.
Since fleeing, she said her situation can only be described as a “struggle”. Her children, whose ages range from two to 20, are frequently absent from school, sometimes go without food, and are bundled in a one-bedroom botched up just below the main road in the community she fled to a year ago.
Following the Observer report, a team from the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation met with the woman to discuss her current living conditions.
“The information obtained and evidence seen on a subsequent site visit, confirms that [the woman] and her family are living in conditions unsuitable for human habitation. Based on the findings of the investigation, the family will be provided with a double wooden Food For the Poor unit through the Housing, Opportunity, Production and Employment (HOPE) Programme…” the ministry said in an e-mail response to the Observer.
The woman has also been receiving help from the Jamaican Diaspora.