15-y-o faces rape charge

Western Bureau:

Superintendent Sharon Beeput, the commander for Hanover police, shocked councillors at Thursday’s monthly meeting of the Hanover Municipal Corporation (HMC) when she revealed that a 15-year-old boy from the parish is now in custody, arrested and charged with seven counts of rape.

It was against that background that Beeput used her monthly report to the HMC to call on parents across the western parish to start playing a greater role in the lives of their children while making a special effort to monitor their day-to-day activities.

“I would like for parents to pay more attention to their children, as we know we have gone through a period of COVID-19, and a lot of issues have surfaced surrounding that period, so we need to pay attention to the children and their attitudes,” said Beeput.

It was while revealing that an increasing number of children were getting caught up in criminal activities, resulting in some of them being arrested and charged by the police, that Beeput made the startling revelation about the 15-year-old boy, whose next court appearance will be on April 11.

“We have a 15-year-old student from a particular high school in the parish, who was arrested and charged for assault and being armed with an offensive weapon, also another one from that same school who is 13 years old, and he was arrested and charged for unlawful wounding,” Beeput told the councillors.

The boy, on the rape charges, reportedly committed the offences against an underage girl between October 3 and October 19 last year. His arrest and charge came following the intervention of the police, the Child Development Agency (CDA) and the Victim Support Unit.

“As police, we recognise that some of these children are committing serious crimes, so in addition to the school resource officers we have in all the schools in the parish, we also have programmes where we go into the schools and speak to the students on a wide range of issues, including sexual matters,” said Beeput. “We now want the parents to become our partners in steering these children away from a life of crime.”

While noting that sexual offences involving children as the perpetrators are not rampant in Hanover, Beeput nonetheless thinks one case is too many, because of the potential to create copycats, which is usually the springboard for much bigger problems.

“This is why we want the parents to pay more attention to their children, and to get to know their friends, so you will have an idea of what they are doing,” said Beeput. “As the police, we are here to support these parents so they should feel free to call on us whenever they need our help, support and guidance.”

bryan.miller@gleanerjm.com