For retired public school educator Patricia Hucey, the calm that has emerged in Annotto Bay, St Mary, and its environs has come at the right time.

“We have been very concerned about incidents of criminality in the area for a long time,” the justice of the peace told the Jamaica Observer.

Afterall, she is a victim of crime, what with the frequent break-ins that she was forced to put up with while she operated a petrol station at the roundabout on the outskirts of the town years ago; and up to two years ago, on May 23, 2016, when she was attacked by a would-be rapist near her home.

That incident happened a day after she returned from a trip to New York, USA, and was getting back into the groove of her regular exercise programme.

“I had just returned to the island and walking on the main road at Iterboreale when a boy held on to me and pulled me in a trench in a bid to rape me,” she said as she related the ordeal that had her shaken up for several weeks.

However, not know to be a pushover, Hucey took on her attacker, fought gallantly and managed to free herself from his grasp before any serious harm came to her. She rushed from the trench, leaving him behind, and simultaneously a man on his bicycle rode up and took on the attacker too.

Hucey summoned the police and, in her estimation, the law enforcers arrived on the scene “within three minutes” and held on to her attacker.

“When the police came, the bway thing still hard so. Can you imagine if that did reach me?” she asked to howls of laughter from those in earshot of the interview.

The businesswoman wants urgent training for some of the loose talent that is in the area so that the youth may be armed with certain skills and not with guns. She believes that coordinated programmes managed by the HEART Trust/National Training Agency would go a far way in preparing the youth for what lies ahead.

“There is a need to galvanise the youth in the area, starting with an initiative to motivate them. Annotto Bay get wild. Every day you hear about gun. Too many lives are being lost in the community and politicians just seek votes and don’t do enough to address the problems.

“I could have been raped and killed, but right now I am working with the Friends of Annotto Bay to find out the number of them who don’t have a skill, for them to get training and get skilled. It can’t be that they just get up and rub their hands with ganja. They also can’t play football this day and can’t get them to feed themselves the next day. They have to earn, and HEART certification is one way out,” stated Hucey.

The Annotto Bay community