Taxi drivers =/= Pedophiles!

[RauCous]

I mean not all of them are interfering with the girls lol.
This is how the make money, the drivers that is, if nobody like you or your maxi that mean you make less money. Not all girls who wait for special maxis are doing it because of any sexual relation to the driver, but the driver doesn't mind as long as he have a steady flow of cash

It's just funny that this gets most of the attention, what about the molesters who don't drive or hiding somewhere, It's a stereotype that if used too much distracts from the other cases of improper sexual conduct between children and adults.

 

[RauCous]

From newsday

HANDS OFF UNDERAGE GIRLS
By SEAN DOUGLAS Wednesday, October 20 2010


MINISTER in the Ministry of National Security Subhas Panday yesterday gave a stern warning to maxi-taxi drivers not to molest the children they are hired to carry from school, as he piloted a Bill in the Senate to help rape victims testify in court.

“I want to inform some people, maxi-taxi drivers who carry young people to school, if you believe that on the last day of school you may display something, commit an assault, and if a week after, or if a year after, you didn’t hear about it, don’t feel you are off the hook... At All!” he stormed. “Long after, that person may complain and if that person has a good reason for not making a recent complaint, you could be caught and charged.”

Panday addressed his remarks to maxi-taxi-drivers, PH drivers and abusive step-fathers in his opening statement on the Evidence (Amendment) (No2) Bill 2010.

“Sometimes there are circumstances where somebody has a wife who has children, female, and you believe that you could sexually abuse that person (child)... Beware! Beware!” he warned. “If that child complains a long time after the incident, this legislation as it stands here will catch you.”

Panday said sexual offences are not crimes of passion but are deliberate and well-thought out acts. He warned that the Bill also applies to cases where the issue of consent is not relevant, such as statutory rape where a man has sex with an underage girl.

Panday, an attorney, said he was laying down the law clearly for all to see so that ignorance of the law is no defence, however complex.

He said it is wrong for a man to try to plead that an underage girl looked big like an adult. He ruled, “The law says it is a matter of age. ‘Big’, ‘beautiful’, it doesn’t matter. As a man and a person you have a duty and an obligation placed on you according to law by age, so there’s no excuse whatsoever to say, ‘I thought she was a big woman’, ‘she was behaving like a big woman’.”

He said the Bill applies to such cases. Panday pointed out the penalties for a man having sex with an underage girl.

“When a male person has sexual intercourse with a female person who is not his wife, with her consent, and who has attained the age of 14 years but not yet 16, he is guilty of an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for 12 years on the first instance and to imprisonment for 15 years for a subsequent offence,” he read.

“So the law is serious. I don’t want to speak about anticipated legislation but (want) to indicate that we will be bringing laws to this Parliament where the consequences and the sentences will be as severe as this.” He said the Government would fight crime by laws and by education.

Opposition Chief Whip in the Senate, Pennelope Beckles, also lamented what she said was the increasing prevalence of men involved with underage girls.

Beckles said, “It is becoming more and more prevalent, some of our cultural practices...” .

Recalling Panday’s speech about maxi-men, she said, “We don’t want to appear to be pinpointing them in particular, but we do know that after school we go to certain places and we observe certain practices.”

Beckles said that as a criminal attorney she noted Panday’s concerns about men trying to make excuses for involvement with underage girls such as claiming they thought the girls were older. She was particularly concerned about men involved with girls under the age of 14. “There are some men who are living with girls under 14, and seem to have no difficulty with it, and don’t understand that if a report is made, that even though she has been consenting and she may even have had a child for him and she may love him and all the other things that we talk about, there is really no defence.”

She said such offenders must be clearly warned against these practices that the offenders feel are alright. “It is not alright. It is wrong!” she stormed.

Later on Beckles lamented the humiliation and financial cost suffered by rape victims having to repeatedly go to court to testify, perhaps travelling from Port-of-Spain to Rio Claro, for a case that can drag on for months or even years. “Everyone gets fed up of you,” she lamented of such victims.

She lamented such delays in the court system, such as the late arrival of prisoners at court. Beckles said a study claimed that in the United States domestic violence has an annual cost in health services of US$4.1 billion, plus $1.8 billion in lost productivity. Earlier, Panday explained how the Bill under debate, helps rape victims, including underage victims of statutory rape.

He said the Bill lets a rape victim’s testimony in court be bolstered by her complaints to a sympathetic listener made just after the assault and before the court-case hearing

“So if a person has been raped and tells someone — the time and the place — the person who she complained to can be called by the court and give evidence,” said Panday. This enables a jury to have a fuller picture of the facts, he said.

He said the Bill revives a legal principle that Trinidad and Tobago had abolished in 1986, but which the United Kingdom (UK) still applies to all types of criminal offences, known as the doctrine of recent complaint. Panday related that after the law was changed in 1986, local prosecutors had greater difficulty in convicting alleged rapists.

The current Bill, he said, is inconsistent with the Constitution and needs a three-fifths majority in the Senate.

He noted there is a debate as to how soon after an assault a victim must complain in order for the listener to be allowed to testify on her behalf, with a 2003 case in the UK limiting it to two months.

However, he said if the victim failed to complain to a listener or complained long after the assault, the Bill says a judge must tell the jury that this “failing” does not mean her allegation is false. This measure in clause 4 protects a victim from harsh cross-examination by a defence lawyer as to why she did not complain to anyone on time, as could have occurred by applying the doctrine merely under common law, that is, in the absence of a Bill/Act.

Panday said there may be good reason why a victim might not want to complain to someone soon after being raped, such as fear.

He said there are different views as to when a judge should explain to a jury how the doctrine works, with some saying it should occur during his normal summing up at the end of evidence submitted, while others say jurors should be told as soon as the matter is raised in evidence. “Proffer your suggestions,” he invited senators. Panday suggested that the law be expanded from the stance of the New Zealand law on which it is based, so as to now let a judge give a balanced summing up in a rape trial.

The Bill also extends the use of video-recording of witness statements to cover trials of all types of criminal offences.

This is a good bill, especially the video part, this way victims who are too traumatized should still be able to give their story to a court. Also the secondary witness part, so if you tell a friend they can back you up in court when trail comes. It's always better to act quickly, so even though you give your statement , you don't have to go through any tough questioning if you're still recovering from everything.
I might be being paranoid but don't think many boys/men care about the age disparity as long as they getting away with free sex, i just hope i'm wrong, but to me doing if the right thing makes you a minority or rarity obviously something wrong with our youth in TnT.