Bizarre sex offence cases occurring in certain communities and which are now before the Trelawny Circuit Court have triggered a call from a member of the Jamaican Bar for those communities to be named and shamed.

Among the cases is that of a father who repeatedly abducted and raped his teen daughter while videoing the encounters; and a 60-year-old who threatened to “obeah” his 12-year-old neighbour if she did not have sex with him. Both cases occurred in one locale.

The victims — whom the Jamaica Observer has learnt are largely from south Trelawny communities of Albert Town, Sawyer, Deeside, Litchfield and Bottom River — have reportedly been largely ostracised by residents, some of whom have gone as far as to classify some of the victims as “loose” and “sluts”.

“We are in a crisis in Southern Trelawny. When you can pinpoint a geographical area it is bad. It is not a situation where it is scattered all over the place. I think these communities need to be named and shamed; they need to hear their community names being called and be ashamed that this is where they live. It is terrible down here,” the senior counsel told the Sunday Observer.

Chief Justice Bryan Sykes, who has been on the Trelawny Circuit and has been handling the matters, is beside himself and has scolded the offenders, while slapping them with heavy sentences and disparaging what he has termed “a culture and a pattern” in that locale, the Sunday Observer was told.

The attorney-at-law, who told the Sunday Observer that the final number of sex offence cases dealt with will be released at the end of the current Circuit, which is in its seventh week, said, “All but one of the sex matters that we have dealt with so far have come from South Trelawny”. She said the victims are between the ages of 11 and 15 years old.

In the case of the father who was charged for having sex with his teen daughter over a two-year period, which was brought to the Sunday Observer‘s attention, the man — who pleaded guilty at the last minute — was convicted for two counts of incest, one count of producing pornographic material because he video recorded the engagements, one count of forcible abduction, and one count of grievous sexual assault.

According to information provided by the police, the girl, who lived with her mother, was returning from school one day when her father called, telling her to meet him at ‘a particular place’. From there, he took her to her uncle’s house where he had sex with her against her will. Based on the statement of the victim, he continued to do so and on the last occasion he had sex with her in his car.

In his explanation, the father claimed that his actions were his attempt to satisfy what he said was his curiosity about what sex with his own child would feel like.

Chief Justice Sykes, in sentencing the disgraced man, lashed out at what he described as “a culture and a pattern” in that locale. However, the social enquiry report (SER), which is comprised of interviews done with community residents ahead of a sentencing exercise, saw individuals blasting the young girl as “ungrateful” for turning in the man who had “sent her to school” while labelling her “a slut, a whore and pickney weh teck man”.

The man was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In another horrifying case, a child on the brink of being evicted with her mother from the home of a man with whom her mother was in a relationship, was not turned down when she offered herself to him in return for continued housing.

“She was 13 years old when it began and it went on for two years. It came to a head when she got pregnant at 15 and he was arrested and charged,” the attorney disclosed.

In advocating for their client, who had pleaded guilty, his attorneys told Justice Sykes that he was willing to look after the baby but said if he was sent to prison he would not be able to do so.

Justice Sykes, in sentencing him last Wednesday, dismissed the man’s offer, saying that if he were to place too much weight on that proposal he would be incentivising adults to have sex with children.

The man was sentenced to a combined 45 years (20 years on one count and 25 on another) but will only serve 25 years, as the sentences will run concurrently. He will therefore serve the longer of the two. The judge further ordered that his name be entered into the sex offender’s registry.

In another matter tried earlier this month, a 60-year-old man was convicted of rape and sexual grooming in respect of his 12-year-old neighbour whom he “knew from she was in the belly”.

“He was a very kind neighbour to her and her mother, he gave them food, cooking oil, anything they wanted, he gave them fruits from his fruit trees,” a source told the Sunday Observer.

He, however, had sinister intentions.

“She left her shoes and socks outside and when she went back to get them she found the pair of shoes but only one foot of socks. He told her he had the other foot and that if she did not have sex with him he would obeah her, and she believed in obeah so she gave in,” the Sunday Observer was told.

The man, who was found guilty by a jury, is awaiting sentencing.

According to the attorney, who has been in the legal profession for more then 20 years, while the numbers are troubling, the attitude towards the offences are more cause for concern.

“The number of sexual offences is not alarming. It is how deeply entrenched it is. When you look at the SER and how people in the community treat with being told that this person has committed the offence and pleaded guilty; they do not see the children as victims. When you look at a SER you see, ‘give him a chance’, how ‘good and kind and decent’ he was; you hear what ‘a good father’ he was, and you hear that the girl is ‘loose and seductive’,” the attorney said.

“So it is clear that the communities do not see these children as victims and they are not sympathetic to them and it is like it is a free for all, for these adult men to have sex with these children and everybody turns a blind eye,” the attorney said further.

Also before that court, the Sunday Observer has learnt, is yet another case in which a child who lived in a tenement yard went to shower in the shared bathroom and was approached by an adult who exposed his male member and told her to perform oral sex on him. He is yet to be sentenced.

The litany of woes is made worse for the victims, some of whom the Sunday Observer was told are toying with the idea of committing suicide.

“What I can tell you is that the complainant in the incest case does not yet see herself as the victim, she blames herself. Relatives of her father, when she made the initial report, descended on her home where she lived with her mother with threats to beat her. So as far as she is concerned, she has done something bad to her father. She is afraid her siblings will not want anything to do with her. She has taken responsibility for her grandmother’s illness and has refused counselling and is very worried about his sentence,” the Sunday Observer was told.

She said in that specific instance, no fingers can be pointed at the justice system.

“It’s not a failure on the part of the police to respond or to act. The matters are before the courts, so the police must be doing something, but the communities are complicit, the people who live in these communities are just so accepting, it’s the norm,” the attorney stated.

The representative further rapped the media for paying little attention to those matters before the courts in that north western Jamaica parish.

“What I am happy about is that we now have legislation that makes these kinds of activities criminal, because before the Sexual Offences Act you would be thinking perhaps of indecent sexual assault or attempted. We now have legislation that covers every type of engagement with a child, and the penalties are stiff,” the attorney said.