Trinidad: Pastor charged with molesting child

(TRINIDAD GUARDIAN) A 72-year-old pas­tor has ap­peared be­fore a San­gre Grande Mag­is­trate, charged with four counts of sex­u­al touch­ing against a fe­male vic­tim.

A state­ment by the Po­lice Ser­vice says the of­fences oc­curred some­time be­tween Sun­day 30th Sep­tem­ber, 2018 and Thurs­day 4th Oc­to­ber, 2018.

Ken­rick Bernard, ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Er­i­ca Bap­tiste-Ramkissoon in the San­gre Grande 2nd Mag­is­trates’ Court on Fri­day to an­swer to charges.

The mat­ter was ad­journed to Fri­day 9th No­vem­ber.

The ac­cused was grant­ed $80,000 bail and or­dered to not come with­in 100 me­ters of the vic­tim or her home.

Po­lice say the vic­tim’s fa­ther and aunt had ac­com­pa­nied her to the Matu­ra Po­lice Sta­tion on Fri­day 5th Oc­to­ber, where a re­port of the in­ci­dent was made and the East­ern Di­vi­sion’s Child Pro­tec­tion Unit (ED­CPU) con­tact­ed.

An in­ves­ti­ga­tion, su­per­vised by In­spec­tor Dar­ren Bap­tiste of ED­CPU was launched, which re­sult­ed in the ac­cused be­ing ar­rest­ed at his home on Thurs­day 11th Oc­to­ber.

The sus­pect was sub­se­quent­ly charged with the of­fences by WPC Kernisha Valere, on that same day.