AG lashes 1,700 'wicked souls'

SOME 1,700 sex offenders live in TT with their crimes being unknown to an unsuspecting public, lamented Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

He moved a motion to tidy up the law that recently set up a sex offenders register.

The AG said some 1,461 sex offenders were convicted in the Magistrates Court, and 232 offenders in the High Court from 2009-2018.

However none of these 1,693 offenders had been put onto a sex offenders registry which was never enacted until recently, he lamented.

“Nearly 1,700 wicked souls in this country raping and abusing our most vulnerable,” Al-Rawi hit.

“People ought to be able to know who their neighbours are, who you are hiring and who you are hiring to come into your home to look after your children.”

While the 2019 Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act schedule lists crimes whose perpetrators can be put onto a sex offenders register, it inadvertently included certain offences against minors listed in the 1986 Sexual Offences Act but which were since put under the Children’s Act.

After a response from Cumuto/Manzanilla MP Christine Newallo-Hosein, the House unanimously passed the motion.