The day a conviction disturbed me

Feb 28, 2016 Features / Columnists, My Column

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This past week a number of things bothered me, but none more than the 25-year sentence meted out to a media colleague. When the news reached me I was stunned. My mind went back to when the story broke that my colleague had molested a female member of his family.
People met me on the streets and sought to convince me that the man was innocent. One person said to me that he was the victim of being too strict. It was in 2014, and the woman said to me that the girl was bent on heading to the wild side. I asked how this could be if the household is strict, when adults have the power over the children in their care.
As a father with children of my own, I did not have too difficult time to get my children to walk the straight and narrow. I got them to appreciate whatever the home provided; I got them to appreciate the love in the household and of course, their mother and I were always there to lend an ear.
The rules were strict; you had to be home at a certain time, you could not dare bring home something that was not yours and things like that.
So when I heard about this girl running away, the first question I asked was whether the adults had sought medical confirmation about the child’s perceived sexual activity. All the woman would say to me was that the man was a victim of being too strict.
So, when I heard the sentence I called among other places, the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Liz Rahaman explained that while the matter was done in chambers, the man was there and he had his lawyers who were free to cross-examine the child. She told me that whatever transpired was enough to convince the jury that the child was to be believed.
She did say that the circumstantial evidence was overwhelming. The one thing that I found hard to believe was that the child suggested that the molestation had begun since she was three years old. I could not believe that a three-year-old, eleven years later, would remember that early molestation.
Suffice it to say that the verdict went the way it did. Then I saw the emotion displayed by the accused and concluded that such emotions would only be displayed by an innocent person. I am still unconvinced that I was wrong.
However, my mind ran riot. Andre Hetsberger is not jail material, so I am worried about his state of mind. His life is over unless he succeeds in his appeal.
Yet the state must protect its children. All too often child sex abuse is reported and the abuser goes unpunished. As a reporter I have spoken to my fair share of people who were abused. There is a reporter at the Guyana Chronicle who is a grown woman. Years after a rape when she spoke to me she was reduced to tears. She felt the pain.
Then there was another reporter who worked with me at Kaieteur News. She too was very tearful when she told me her story. She spoke of having to face her abuser. She got some satisfaction of sorts when the abuser’s daughter was murdered.
She told me that she confronted and asked him how he felt. She said that she told him that he now knows the pain she felt.
Ann Greene of the Childcare and Protection Agency often tells me some horror stories. She spoke of mothers actually blaming the child for the abuse and actually preventing any prosecution.
A long time ago in Lodge there was a man who went to jail for raping and killing a woman at Bartica. He was living with a woman who had an eight-year-old that this man molested. He is now dead, but I can still see him in my mind’s eye. He was never prosecuted for molesting that child who is now a teenager.
There are also the too numerous incestuous parents. Despite the evidence, these criminal men continue to live in the homes with the children. Ms Greene told me of a situation in which a man molested first one daughter and then the smaller one. I asked why no prosecution; she said that the children would tell their friends, but they would not tell the authorities.
I firmly believe that children should be allowed to grow and to appreciate life. Some policemen did take matters into their own hands some time ago. There was this Moulvi on West Demerara who was in the habit of molesting his daughters.
One of the girls complained to a policeman whom she had befriended. The policeman set a trap for the man so the next time he made his move they were there. He would take the girls out of the home to the back of the yard. That was where the policemen pounced on him and beat the daylights out of him. As fate would have it, they were transferred.
Hetsberger is not going to be the last to suffer that fate. But then again, will he suffer the fate of child molesters in prison? All over the world, jail men do not take kindly to child molesters. They beat them mercilessly.
If that is the fate that awaits child molesters, I wonder why men still do it.

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