‘The thing is that a lot of people out here done know what happened with me and they all troubling me about it. I guess I just glad I getting a chance to live my life where people don’t really know me or what happen to me.’
The recruit who was sexually assaulted by a policeman at Police Headquarters, Eve Leary last week, will resume training at the Felix Austin School of Training, following discussions with a senior police officer.
Protection for the remainder of the training period, an out-of-town post and prosecution of the man who attacked him in the training school compound have been promised to the recruit.
These promises, the recruit told Stabroek News, were made to him by the officer-in-charge of the training school. “He explained to me that this doesn’t have to be the end of my hopes for becoming a policeman,” the 19-year-old said. The meeting was held following a report in this newspaper in which the recruit said his dream of being a policeman was now over.
After the meeting on Monday morning, the recruit said, he resumed training at the location and two guards have been assigned to him. “I feel safe here now…I believe that they really do want to help me and make this work for me,” he said.
During the meeting, the recruit recounted, he was encouraged to complete his training. He explained that the officer he spoke with stressed that there were just a few weeks of training left and at the end of them he “will be sent to an interior location.” All efforts, he further said, will be made to guard his identity.
“The thing is that a lot of people out here done know what happened with me,” the recruit said, “and they all troubling me about it…I guess I just glad I getting a chance to live my life where people don’t really know me or what happen to me.”
The man further said that he was advised that his alleged attacker remains under close arrest and will be charged shortly. “They told me that that the matter is being investigated by the Criminal Investigation Department and that the man is going to be charged soon but they didn’t say when,” he said.
The policeman, a training instructor, reportedly sodomised the recruit. Sometime after 9 pm last Thursday, the recruit had said, he was given guard duty and the training instructor assigned him to a certain location in the compound of the Felix Austin Training School, Eve Leary. The man said that when he arrived at the location it was dark and he was returning to inform his instructor about this. “Before I could move away from the location this man come walking up to me and just attacked me. He lock me off in vice and then hit me…I lost consciousness for a while and when I came to the first thing I did was rush to my superiors to report what had happened,” he recounted.
The instructor, according to the recruit, had made an attempt to escape the compound but was caught by other ranks. This incident occurred a day after police officially opened their officers’ conference.
Speaking for the first time since the incident, Crime Chief Seelall Persaud told this newspaper that the accused is under close-arrest and is being held at Police Head-quarters. The file, according to Persaud, has been sent to the Director of Public Prose-cutions (DPP) for advice. The crime chief declined to comment further on the incident.
The training instructor, a senior police source had said, was transferred from the police B Division (Berbice) for a similar matter.
