–as mother’s sting operation collapses

A MOTHER is calling on the police to act swiftly in investigating and laying charges against a man who sexually assaulted her 11-year-old daughter on Monday in Region 3.

Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle last evening, the child’s mother related that her daughter attended computer classes in Vreed-en-Hoop and sometime last week Friday, she was out of credit and did not see her grandfather arrive to pick her up on time.
The child then went into the lower flat of the building where the classes are kept, and where there is also a shop. There, she met a man whom she asked for a call, which he in turn granted. The girl then called her mother’s phone to inform her that grandfather had not yet arrived, and her mother advised her to catch a bus and head home.
Unaware that the child had dialled her mother’s phone, the man began texting the phone the following day, thinking that it was the child with whom he was chatting.
After receiving the first sexually suggestive text messages, the mother realised that the person who was texting her was actually trying to reach her daughter.
The woman said she began responding to the text messages as if she were the 11-year-old, and the man then began making demands.
He began asking the child when she would have free time, and what she was wearing. He also invited her to meet him, and told her to ensure that she was wearing a dress when coming to see him. He even advised her to leave home to see him, under the pretext that she was going to collect an assignment from a friend.
The woman then questioned her daughter about the person, and the child told her that she had asked a man for a call on Friday when she did not see her grandfather. The man told the woman, via text messages, that he was 28, but according to the child, he is much older than 28.

STING OPERATION
The child’s mother then agreed with her daughter and two other family members to set up a ‘sting’ operation to meet the man. However, the man was able to outsmart the adults and lure the girl into a house.
While there, he kissed and fondled the child, causing her to force her way out of the home in tears. The girl was lured into the home after the man arrived in a minibus and signalled her to walk through a street.
During that period, another vehicle pulled up alongside the vehicle the child’s relatives were in, but by the time the vehicle had moved the man had already lured the girl through a street, while she was under the impression that her relatives were monitoring her movements.
After the child forced her way out of the house, she was spotted by the adults who rushed to her and telephoned the police who showed up and arrested the man. He is now in the police lockups.
This publication was told that initially the man had planned to meet the child at one location but changed that arrangement at the last minute which contributed to throwing the child’s relatives off-track.

(By Leroy Smith)