TAHIR Dudley, a former track and field coach, was yesterday ordered to return to court on April 24, to face charges of buggery of a 12-year-old male child.

Allegations against Dudley, who resides at Commission Road in Kingston, are that on January 21, this year, he coerced the child to accompany him to his home to get a pair of athletic spikes he had promised to give the youngster.

While on the way to his home, Dudley allegedly lured the minor into some bushes and sexually assaulted him. When the child went home, his mother noticed him ‘behaving strangely’ and questioned him. He then told his mother of the ordeal he had undergone a few hours earlier. The child’s mother then took him to the police and made a report.

Dudley was arrested the day after the incident by Constable Shaun Williams of the Rockfort police and charged.

On a previous court date the child’s mother had informed the court that she had not been getting satisfactory co-operation from the school’s principal, who she said discouraged her from reporting the sexual assault on her son to the police. The principal was on that occasion summoned to the Half-Way-Tree Resident Magistrate’s Court by the presiding magistrate, Martin Gayle to explain her actions.

The molested child has since had to be removed from the school as his classmates and other children were taunting him about the ordeal and it was seriously affecting his mental state. The child is scheduled to sit the GSAT examinations next week.