Supreme Court judge Justice Leighton Pusey on Tuesday said the recent public focus on the number of sex offences on court lists islandwide has been a trend witnessed by the judiciary for the past decade and described it as an “indictment on our society”.

“In the public domain we have also been speaking a lot recently about the growth in the amount of sexual offences, that is something which is new in the press and other areas but these are matters that we have been seeing in court for maybe the last 10 years or more and it is an indictment on our society that so many of these matters in terms of sexual offences appear,” Justice Pusey said while presiding over the opening of the Home Circuit Court of the Judiciary for the Michaelmas Term at the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston.

The senior jurist, in noting that there was no lessening of the impact of such offences on older victims, expressed particular concern that a number of the complainants are children.

“In many of the cases, and I have to be careful how I say this because it does not matter the age of the complainants in these matters, it’s serious whether they are adults or otherwise, but it is even more concerning that so many of the complainants are young children who ought to be looking at other things,” Justice Pusey noted.

His remarks stemmed from the listing provided by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions detailing the cases for the term of the Supreme Court which handles the majority of cases of circuits islandwide. According to the documentation, a total 1,015 cases are before that court for this new term with 496 of those being sexual offences matters. A breakdown of sex offences by type show 138 rapes matters; 101 cases of sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16; 85, grievous sexual assault; 43, forcible abduction; 35, indecent assault; 21, buggery; 16, sexual touching of a child; one, production of child pornography; one, carnal abuse; and several counts involving producing and distributing child pornography as well as aiding and abetting buggery and sexual grooming of a child among others.

Justice Pusey, while noting that there has been much comment recently about the dip in murders, said the courts have been dealing with those tailwinds.

“In terms of the matters here, we continue to make the point that unfortunately for us in this country these matters only grow. I know that in recent times we have, in the public sphere, spoken about the fact that the amount of murders are diminishing, however we remind ourselves that we still have a large number of matters that we are trying to deal with,” Pusey said.

“Between 2020 and 2022 many of our jury matters could not proceed because of the [Covid-19] pandemic. That backlog affected what was there before, although we have made strides and continue to make strides there are still several matters which are outstanding,” he stated.

There are 361 murder matters on the court list for the term, in addition to 188 illegal possession of firearm cases and 67 wounding with intent matters among other offences.

Meanwhile, defence attorney Peter Champagnie, King’s Counsel, speaking during the ceremony, called for amendments to the new Firearms (Prohibition, Restriction and Regulation) Act, 2022, which replaced the old Firearms Act. According to Champagnie, the amendments would be to facilitate guilty pleas with relation to the statutory mandatory in the present Act which introduced a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years for possession. The respected attorney, in the meantime, warned that if such an amendment was not adequately addressed it will lead to a backlog.