Some residents of Port Kaituma are concerned that a man accused of raping a young girl is now on bail and living in the same house with her and her sister.
Last year March, fisherman Vibert Henry, 30, of Moruca, appeared before then Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson on a charge of allegedly having carnal knowledge of an 11-year-old girl. He was not required to plead and was then remanded to prison. However, the matter was later transferred to the Matthew’s Ridge Magistrate’s Court and the man was later granted bail.
Just over a year later, the man is once again living in the same home with the girls at a place called Canal Bank, on the outskirts of Port Kaituma. “This is just stupidness, how can he be allowed to live with those girls knowing what he did? And he is alone with these girls at home sometimes,” an upset resident of the area told Stabroek News last week.
According to information reaching this newspaper, the man has not been attending court and the last time the matter may have been called was early February.
One resident told this newspaper that he approached the welfare officer in the area and informed him that the man is back in the area and living in the same house with the girls. “At first he was doubting me and he tell me that the man was not in the area but on Saturday I took the police to the house and there was the man and the police arrested him,” the resident said.
However, he said hours later the man was released by police at Port Kaituma after they indicated that they have no arrest warrant for him and they could not even locate a jacket for the case he faces before the court.
“We don’t know what else to do because we went to the police and the welfare officer and nothing is happening and sometimes we see this man bathing with the children at the riverside,” a resident said.
Stabroek News was told that the children are motherless and their father lives some miles from them in another backdam but he does not take care of them. The children were left with a relative to attend school in Port Kaituma and it is this relative who shares a home with Henry.
‘One big happy family’
A relative of the couple told this newspaper that after Henry was charged, the girls were sent to stay with their father’s parents. Their relative, who has three children with Henry, then left their children with his family in Moruca and moved to Georgetown.
However, when Henry was granted bail, he reportedly contacted the woman and demanded that she return for the children and informed her if she did not she would have been locked up. The woman came back and the children were returned to her and soon after Henry also returned to the home and the sisters were also taken back to the house “and now is like one big happy family, but is not really a happy family,” the relative said.
The woman with whom the children lives, Stabroek News was told, works and is out during the day and all the children, including the two sisters, are left with Henry.
They seldom attend school, residents have said.
Some residents are calling on the Ministry of Human Services & Social Security to remove the children from the area, as they are fearful that they are being further abused and no one is offering them the protection needed.
When he appeared before the courts last year, Henry, who was unrepresented, had stated, “Ah real sorry foh wah ah do to them two lil girls,” and added that he was wrong. At the time, Prosecutor Stephen Telford informed the magistrate that another charge of a similar nature involving a six-year-old girl was expected to be laid against Henry. It is not clear if the man was subsequently charged with raping the younger child, who is the sister of the 11-year-old.
Prior to him being charged last year residents were forced to express their dissatisfaction over the police investigation into the report of rape committed on the two young girls.
At the time Stabroek News was told that the man was taken into custody but was later released and was roaming the area. It was following the publication of the residents’ concerns that the man was subsequently re-arrested and brought to George-town and charged.
At the time, residents had also expressed concern over the advice given to the family by an official of the Community Development Coun-cil (CDC) of the area, who had said that they should forgive because they are all Christians. “These girls are just children and he telling them to forget about it after what this man did to them…,” a resident had said at the time.
The residents are fearful that the man would not face justice and it is believed that the family is again being advised that they should forget about the matter.
