TT$.8 million bail for man charged in tourist attack in Tobago

(Trinidad Guardian) A 34-year-old Arou­ca man on Friday ap­peared in the Scar­bor­ough Mag­is­trates’ Court fac­ing sev­er­al charges in con­nec­tion with an at­tack on two fe­male British tourists.

Arther­ly ‘Rat­ty’ Fras­er, a PH taxi dri­ver who was stay­ing at Young Street, Canaan, ap­peared be­fore Magis­trate Du­ane Mur­ray in the Scar­bor­ough Third Court charged with two counts of kid­nap­ping, two counts of rob­bery and two counts of griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault on two Unit­ed King­dom tourists aged 33 and 35. He was not called up­on to plead as the charges were laid in­dictably.

The court heard that around 1:30 am on Mon­day, the duo hired a PH dri­ver to trans­port them from the Sun­day School fes­tiv­i­ties at Buc­coo to their guest house lo­cat­ed at Black Rock. Along the way, how­ev­er, the dri­ver al­leged­ly stopped at Grafton Beach and pro­ceed­ed to sex­u­al­ly as­sault them and rob them of their cell­phones. He then es­caped in his ve­hi­cle, leav­ing them be­hind. The women im­me­di­ate­ly made a re­port to the Shir­van Road Po­lice Sta­tion. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion was car­ried out and a sus­pect was ar­rest­ed at his apart­ment on Tues­day around 7 am. On Wednes­day, the sus­pect was pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fied by the women dur­ing an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade at the Scar­bor­ough Po­lice Sta­tion.

Fras­er was un­rep­re­sent­ed when he ap­peared in court and bail was set at TT$800,000.

WPC Phillip-Radix of the Shir­van Road Po­lice Sta­tion laid the charges.

Fras­er is sched­uled to reap­pear in court on April 5.