Sexual Offences Unit coming in 2021

Head of the Gender-Based Violence Unit (GBVU) acting Supt Claire Guy-Alleyne said a Sexual Offences Unit will be formed in “early 2021.”

She was speaking at UNTT’s virtual webinar on Strengthening Service Delivery in the Justice System on Friday morning.

Since the GBVU’s launch in January, Guy-Alleyne said, over around 1,000 reports have been made and over 300 people have been arrested in connection with those incidents.

“And we have had a number of convictions, as recent as yesterday (Thursday), where a male offender was sentenced to prison, and that was for actual bodily harm."

She also praised Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith, calling him “forward-thinking and proactive."

On the proposed unit, she said, “A meeting has been set up with the Ministry of Education so that we can get into the schools, the Child Protection Unit, the Gender-Based violence Unit and a new unit that is going to be formed early next year – the Sexual Offences Unit.

“So we are going to having these conversations from the age of toddler coming right up the road. Once we start that from small and we come up, we shall be seeing changes in the future.”