(JAMAICA GLEANER) The Manchester police expect that very soon, Demar Scott, the man held by the St James police in connection with the alleged rape of two guests at a resort there, will face identification parades in relation to six rape cases in Mandeville last year.
“Mr Scott is still with the St James police. We have not gotten timelines as to when he will be sent to us as yet, but we are hoping to get that in place next week,” chief of police in Manchester Superintendent Wayne Cameron told a Manchester Chamber of Commerce forum late Thursday.
“We have six files presently that we have gone through… pertaining to Scott. In all of these incidents he will be placed on an ID parade,” Cameron told his audience at the Golf View Hotel.
Listing the reported incidents — some of which also involved robbery — in chronological order, Cameron said the first occurred on April 11, 2017. A 31-year-old woman was followed home “in a taxi” to Hatfield, (just outside Mandeville) and raped by an armed man, Cameron said.
The second incident reportedly happened on April 23, in Ingleside, an upscale residential area in Mandeville. A man allegedly climbed over a balcony, broke the louvre blades of a window, entered the house, and raped two women.
“He had followed the females home in a taxi as well,” Cameron said.
On April 30, a 16-year-old student was raped at a bus park at Nashville in Mandeville, when she and her male companion were held up at gunpoint by a lone man.
In the fourth incident on May 15, 2017, at about 10:00 pm on the compound of the Mandeville Baptist Church, a 17-year-old student and her male companion were held up by a man armed with a machete. They, too, were robbed and the teenager raped.
The baptist church was also the scene of the fifth incident on May 27. Again, a 17-year-old was the rape victim. She, too, was with a male companion. They were held up by a man armed with a gun.
The last rape incident in Mandeville for which Scott is “a person of interest” occurred on August 27 of last year.
Cameron said this incident, involving “abduction, rape, robbery, aggravation, and unlawful wounding”, happened on Main Street in Mandeville.
“A 15-year-old student was walking along the roadway with a male companion. A lone man armed with a firearm robbed the man of property and then pulled the female into bushes and raped her,” he said.
As regards his recent arrest by St James police, Scott, who was working as an entertainment coordinator at a Montego Bay hotel, allegedly entered a room and sexually assaulted two women at gunpoint. The gun reportedly fell from his hand and one of the women shot him. He fled and was subsequently held by police.
Scott has been on the Manchester police’s wanted list for sometime, with a cash reward offered for information on his whereabouts. As far back as last December, the Jamaica Observer reported Cameron as naming Scott as a “person of interest” in relation to rape cases in Mandeville.
Cameron told business leaders in Mandeville that most categories of major crimes were trending down in Manchester this year compared to last year.
There had been 19 murders up to Thursday, compared to 35 for the same period last year. The police had achieved a 79 per cent “cleared up” rate for murders, he said. In terms of major crimes reported to the police, there had been an overall decrease of 59 per cent, he said.
Cameron said so far this year, Manchester had the fourth lowest crime rate behind Kingston Central, Portland and St Elizabeth.
“ We believe that without any sort of intervention in terms of ZOSO (zone of special operation) and state of emergency, the Manchester Police Division is doing very well,” he said.
