Neighbours living in fear after helping previous rape victims

Mar 04, 2021 News

By Shervin Belgrave

Alleged serial rapist, Thurston Semple, is currently in police custody.

Kaieteur News – For a number of years, neighbours of alleged serial rapist, 37-year-old, Thurston Semple, have been living in fear after helping some of his previous victims.
On Wednesday last, however, they were forced to put those fears aside and lend a helping hand in assisting a Venezuelan sex worker.
The woman was allegedly raped, sodomized and battered by Semple. His neighbours had witnessed her plunging through Semple’s louvres window in a bid to escape. They even looked on in horror as he brutalized her in his yard, before they were able to help her scale his fence.
Semple, a resident of Lot 5A, Tucville Terrace, is currently in custody as police investigate the matter.
In a bid, by this newspaper, to find out more about the suspect, one phrase – ‘this is not the first time he has done this’ – was repeatedly echoed by neighbours.
When questioned as to why they had not reported their observations to police, they residents informed, “we did help a few times in the past, but our actions had caused us to live in fear.”
A female neighbour recalled that close to some 15 years ago, he had run out of his yard and lashed her to the head, causing her to collapse.
His brother, who was living with him at the time, had also joined in dragging her out of the yard and assaulting her for confronting him about a victim.
“His mother was there witnessing this too. I had reported the matter, he was held a few days and released…I never got justice for that assault,” said the neighbour.
“Since then,” she said, “we have been scared of him and did not want to get mix up in his personal life.”
Others recalled him chasing a woman out of his house and beating her in the street.
That woman was rescued too, they said, but he was held for a few days again and then released.
A man said that Semple had been locked up for rape before but after some months had passed he returned to the neighbourhood.
“A man like that is dangerous cause if you report him and he comes back to live among you, he can take revenge by harming us or our children,” he said.
Another individual said that he would come out in his yard and “curse up, making threats of killing and raping and sodomizing people for their mouth.”
Semple, the residents said, even threatened to burn down their homes for rescuing the Venezuelan sex worker, who was assaulted Wednesday last. She, this publication had reported, had to punch her way through a louvres window and jump a fence to escape Semple.
One of the residents explained that he was arrested on the night of that assault but was subsequently released.
When he returned, that individual related that he began cursing. He had said, they reported, “‘all yuh wah talking, talking and bring me down, a gon bun down yall house.”
Semple was re-arrested by police on Monday and has been in custody ever since.
The neighbours are hoping that this time he will be convicted and locked away behind bars for a very long time.
Kaieteur News had learnt that over years Semple was accused of not only brutalizing sex workers, but would also lure minors, both girls and boys, into his home to have sex with them.
In some cases, he would beat his victims, take away their clothes, chase them out of his home, and shut the door. These incidents, neighbours said, would happen at nights.
Semple is also accused of raping and beating a female relative, who has since died.

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