AG: 1,693 perverts roam freely

ATTORNEY-GENERAL Faris Al-Rawi made his case for a sex offenders register to be run by the police by saying that, at present, some 1,693 sex offenders live freely without having been registered as required by law. He piloted the Sexual Offenders (Amendment) Bill 2019 in the House of Representatives on Friday, as previously amended in its passage through the Senate and a joint select committee (JSC.)

Al-Rawi said from 2015-2018 TT had 14,581 cases of children in need of care and protection, according to figures from the Children’s Authority.

The AG said that for the past 19 years of its existence the act had been inadequate. He listed the number of people convicted for sexual offences for 2000-2009 as listed by the judiciary and who ought to be on an offenders register. “Number of persons convicted (magistracy), 1,461. High Court, 232, for a total of 1,693.

“Number of persons ordered to register in the sex offenders registry at the magistracy, zero. At the High Court, zero, for a total of zero.”

All this showed the law did not work and nobody was paying attention to “the very ugly side of TT,” Al-Rawi said.

Earlier, another danger to children was highlighted when Couva South MP Rudy Indarsingh asked an urgent question about illegal drugs.

The House learnt brownies and cookies were being infused with drugs namely marijuana and ecstasy and distributed in schools and at teenage parties, according to Minister in the Office of the Attorney General Fitzgerald Hinds.

He warned parents to be vigilant. “We have already scheduled ecstasy and crystal meth as illegal in the Dangerous Drugs Act.”