The popular St Mary mechanic who is accused of having a sexual encounter with a girl aged eight, and who police said shot at them when they tried to apprehend him, has been caught by law enforcers, the Jamaica Observer can report.

Police held Ian Blake, popularly known as “Signie”, in a pre-dawn operation at his home in Highgate around 4:30 Wednesday morning, ending a near three-month game of hide-and-seek involving himself and the police.

He was sought by police after a relative of the primary school pupil reported to police that the victim was sexually abused by the man, said to be aged over 50, an act that left members of the Highgate community and surrounding areas in shock.

The girl was treated at the Port Maria Hospital and police later released his name as a person of interest.

The incident, which resulted in a complaint being filed to law enforcers, occurred in early April when the man visited the child’s house in a community near to Highgate. Investigators believe that there was prior irregular behaviour by the mechanic.

The accused man fled police when they first went to his house in mid-April with a view to asking him questions relevant to the matter.

Police later confirmed that on April 19, the man was seen driving his vehicle along the Harmony Hall main road, about one kilometre outside of Highgate, and was signalled to stop by a police patrol team. However, he jumped from the car and ran away, and with the police in chase, he slipped behind a building and fired a shot at the bewildered cops who took evasive action.

Since that time, police have tried to apprehend him by going to places at which he was said to frequent, including his house, but came up empty-handed.

“One of the times the police went to his house and him just jump out the back door and run away. It look like somebody was tipping him off whenever the police tried to hold him,” one resident of the community said.

Blake has a reputation for being a highly rated mechanic, who even fixes police vehicles when they are in need of repair.

When the Highgate police was first contacted, a woman on duty who claimed to be a district constable said that Blake was not being sought for questioning in relation to allegations of rape, but “more like indecent assault because he fingered her.

“And its not an eight-year-old, the girl is 10,” she said.

A woman constable in the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) division at the Port Maria Guard Room refused to provide additional information surrounding Blake’s arrest, citing that she is “not authorised to pass out that information.”

The police force’s information arm, the Constabulary Communication Unit, said it was unaware of the arrest.

The Highgate community, home of Minister of National Security Robert Montague, has been relatively peaceful, traditionally. But in recent years there has been an influx of illegal guns and criminals that has left citizens in apprehension mode.

Police held a town hall meeting there recently and urged the people not to support and embrace the activities of criminals after it emerged that the man on their ‘Most Wanted’ list, Marlon Perry, otherwise called ‘Duppy Flim’, had been spotted in the town and was being accommodated by certain residents.

Perry is wanted for several killings across Jamaica. Unconfirmed reports are that he is also wanted for at least one murder in the French-speaking Caribbean country of Haiti.