FALMOUTH, Trelawny – Acting Commissioner of Police (ACP) Keith ‘Trinity’ Gardner is calling for legislative reform that would see stiffer penalties for men who rape other men.

Gardener’s call for the reforms, which would also see other sexual offences attracting stiffer penalties, was prompted by recent reports of a teenaged girl allegedly being fondled by two teenage boys in a van in the presence of a deacon.

The reform would bring the legislation in line with that of the Bahamas and Barbados.

“We would like to again look at the definition of rape, which traditionally speaks to a man having carnal knowledge of a woman without her consent and using either force, fear or fraud. Now what recourse is there for a man – separate and apart from the law relating to buggery – who has been taken captive by another man or a group of men and sexually assaulted, (Is it that) no rape is committed?

” I am using this opportunity to say to our legal reformers to look into the existing laws and to make it a crime as they do in the Bahamas, and they do in Barbados to define rape as they do – taking away and moving away from the gender issue by saying rape is committed when a man unlawfully has sexual intercourse with a woman,” he said.

ACP Gardner, an attorney, was speaking Tuesday at the monthly meeting of the Rotary Club of Falmouth on what he described as the very vexed, but topical issue of “sexual offences and the response of the various stakeholders”.

He further recommended that the law should also define rape as being committed “not only when a particular part of the body is used but by extension if a person uses any part of the body or any instrument to penetrate any part of another person’s body without the permission of the other person.”