Four students from the Barataria North Secondary School appeared in court yesterday accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old classmate during an incident at the school last year. The four teenagers, who were accompanied by their parents, were granted a total of $250,000 bail when they appeared before Magistrate Wendy Dougdeen-Bally in the Port-of-Spain Seventh Court. The teenagers, who cannot be named for legal reasons, stood silently with their heads bowed when the charges were being read. They were not called upon to plea to the charges as they were laid indictably.
Two of the students—a 15-year-old Form Five student from San Juan and a 17-year-old from Piarco—were each charged with committing grievous sexual assault on the schoolgirl, who is now 16. They were each granted $50,000 bail. Another 17-year-old from Barataria was slapped with two charges for having sexual intercourse with a girl between the ages of 14 and 16. The last schoolboy—a Form Four student, aged 18, was charged with committing grievous sexual assault as well as an additional charge of indecent assault. These two boys were each granted $75,000 bail.
The charges arose out of an incident at the school on May 15 last year. As part of the conditions of their bail, Dougdeen-Bally ordered the teenagers to report to the nearest police stations in their communities twice weekly. Police prosecutor Sgt Callister Charles asked Dougdeen-Bally to impose a further condition of preventing the teenagers from contacting the victim, via telephone or social networking sites, such as Facebook. Charles told the court the victim was transferred to another school after the alleged attack. Dougdeen-Bally agreed and ordered the teens to stay 100 metres away from the victim. The four was represented by attorneys Patrick Godson-Phillip and Shyline Barlow. The charges were laid by WPC St George of the Barataria Police Station. They will reappear in court tomorrow.