Alleged sex deacon, co-accused get slight reprieve
FORMER deacon of the Church Dayton Diamond Ridge, Donovan Jones and his three co-accused in the child sexual assault case, which recently morphed into a human trafficking matter, had their bail conditions adjusted when they appeared in the Home Circuit Court last Friday.
Attorneys Tom Tavares Finson and Paul Beswick complained before Justice Martin Gayle that their clients – James Rogers, 18; Shamar Morgan, 18; and a juvenile – were now attending school and their having to report to the police five days per week is proving burdensome.
The boys must now report to the police between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm on Saturdays, as requested.
Beswick said that Jones, 47, the man who allegedly instigated the criminal acts, has now become a bother to the police at the station to which he reports on weekdays between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm. He successfully requested that Jones report three days per week at the same time.
Jones and the boys were offered bail in September after the case was transferred from the Half-Way-Tree Resident Magistrate’s Court to the Home Circuit Court.
Jones, who was hired to take the 13-year-old girl from school to her home, allegedly supervised her repeated sexual assault in the back of a van over a period of days earlier this year, while Rogers videotaped the acts.
The four were slapped with sexual assault charges in the Half-Way-Tree Resident Magistrate’s Court earlier but those charges were dropped by the Director of Public Prosecutions and replaced with five counts of human trafficking when the matter was transferred.