Trinidad: 70 year-old man accused of sex crimes against girl gets bail

The San Fernando Magistrates' Court (File photo)
The San Fernando Magistrates’ Court (File photo)

(Trinidad Guardian) A 70-year-old Mara­bel­la manm ac­cused of com­mit­ing two sex crimes against a 12-year-old girl, has been grant­ed $100,000 ap­proval bail.

Pe­ter Scott, a re­tired weld­ing teacher, was not present in court as he was not tak­en from from the prison.

Scott was re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody on Mon­day by San Fer­nan­do Se­nior Mag­is­trate Ali­cia Chankar for the po­lice to con­duct a fin­ger­print trace to de­ter­mine if he had a crim­i­nal record.

Scott, how­ev­er, was a first time of­fend­er.

Re­new­ing his ap­pli­ca­tion for bail in the First Court, at­tor­ney Frank Git­tens said the el­der­ly man was award­ed a good ser­vice award and suf­fered from sev­er­al ail­ments.

Scott, he said, has glau­co­ma, arthri­tis in the knees and un­con­trol­lable di­a­betes.

The at­tor­ney re­quest­ed that Scott’s wife of 32 years be ac­cept­ed as his sure­ty as she cares for him and will en­sure that he at­tends court.

The charges laid by WPC Ra­jku­mar al­leged that on Ju­ly 31, 2018, he sex­u­al­ly pen­e­trat­ed and sex­u­al­ly touched the child.

Court pros­e­cu­tor Cley­on Seedan con­firmed that Scott does not live near the vic­tim.

In con­sid­er­ing bail, the mag­is­trate looked at the al­le­ga­tion, the age of the vic­tim, the na­ture of the of­fences and where the al­leged in­ci­dent took place.

She or­dered that Scott has no con­tact di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly with the vic­tim or her fam­i­ly. The mat­ter was ad­journed to March 19.