SOME years ago a teenage boy came into contact with two policemen who took his predicament lightly. They returned the boy to the man who was claiming him saying that the boy was obviously involved in a lovers quarrel.

The man had the boy in every sexual way he could and, thanks to these policemen, the next day he had the boy’s brains for breakfast. The man was Jeffrey Dahmer, a notorious sex offender, murderer and cannibal. Dahmer’s 17 murders were particularly gruesome, involving rape, torture, dismemberment and necrophilia.

The policemen apparently did not understand, or they condoned paedophilia and did not enforce the law of carnal knowledge or statutory rape. The boy was “willing” they thought, and this incident was merely a misunderstanding.

As an aside, in prison, Jeffrey Dahmer accepted Jesus Christ as his personal lord and saviour and became a born again Christian. He was baptized by a pastor. I expect that the evangelicals and other Christians who frequently write letters to the newspapers will enjoy spending eternity with Dahmer in heaven.

Now we learn in Guyana that a teenage boy was found by the police in the home of an alleged homosexual in Victoria village. The police spokesman Mr. Ivelaw Whittaker wrote to the press saying this young man was not molested; that he “willingly” engaged in sexual acts with the grown man and newspapers headlines declared that the teenager went with the adult “voluntarily.” The mother of the 15 year old boy had reported him as missing.

Policeman Whittaker story seems a bit confused. At the same time that he tells the press the man could face “abduction charges”, his department’s press report says the boy “was not abducted and was free to come and go as he pleased.” Something is very strange about the police story. It says two different and contrary things at the same time.

To my mind, the link between these two stories about underage males and men is the failure of the police to properly interpret the law and protect minors. The age of the boy in Victoria clearly shows that he not “legally competent of consenting to sexual acts” but the Guyana police disregard this, saying instead that the minor acted on his “own free will”. In this instance it seems to me that the police are breaking the law, though I understand this is quite common in Guyana.

When a person, legally defined as a child acts on his “own free will” does that mean to the police that the “corruption of a minor” did not occur? If a child says “I wanted to” does that mean an adult gets off scot free in Guyana?

This whole thing is sordid and I hope Guyanese realize the dangerous precedent that is being set by the police attitude and approach to law in this incident.
LUTCHMAN GOSSAI.