The police have been advised by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) to charge the suspect in the rape of a mentally challenged Berbice teen, according to Crime Chief Seelall Persaud.
Persaud told Stabroek News yesterday that the DPP had returned the file to the police with advice to further investigate “minor things” and to charge.
On Monday, Persaud had said that the file was still with the DPP but this was denied by the DPP’s Chambers in a press release issued yesterday.
The press release stated that the file was received by the Chambers on February 12. “On receipt of the file the matter was given due attention by the Director of Public Prosecutions Shalimar Ali-Hack and was dispatched to the Crime Chief’s office on February 14,” the release said.
“Our records show that this particular file along with other files, were received and signed for by a staff of the Crime Chief’s office. We take this opportunity to reiterate that when files are sent to the DPP’s Chambers for advice from the Crime Chief’s office, they are given the due attention needed and returned to the Crime Chief’s office without delay,” it added.
When Persaud was contacted yesterday and told that the DPP’s Chambers said that he was in possession of the file, which was sent to him along with others, he admitted that that might be the case. Upon checking, he found that it was indeed in his possession.
Earlier this month, members of the Disabled People’s Network (DPN) of Seafield, West Coast Berbice expressed distress at the rape of the 18-year-old mentally-challenged girl by a minibus driver. It is unclear when the rape took place but based on reports, the man picked the girl up at a gas station. Persons there recalled him seeing the driver holding her hand and putting her in his minibus.
The teen told her mother that she told the driver that she wanted to go to Rosignol but instead, the driver took her to his house in the opposite direction. The girl was found at the man’s home with her clothing “soaking wet.”
