Ex-magistrate: Go after the men

He is calling for a way to be found so that these men can be brought to justice, after they sometimes ruin the lives of the innocent children by getting them pregnant.

“These men should be made an example of before the court. They are having children from these under-age girls. They destroy a lot of these children’s lives. They should be placed before the court,” he told the Weekend Nation.

Bannister, who retired this year, along with his coroner’s duties had responsibility for the Juvenile Court over which he presided for four years. He made his call based on what he had seen.

“They tend to destroy a lot of [potentially] bright girls, because some of these girls just lack the guidance and they lack the male figure in their lives,” he said in relation to some of the court cases.

Mothers

There were instances, he added, where the offences were cases of statutory rape but the mother did not want the father turned in to the police.

“The mothers sometimes know who these men are, but do not come forward, or what happens, the police will do an investigation and then that’s the end of the matter. The reality is that some of these mothers are paid off or for some reason do not want to turn the man in. These men should be made an example of before the court for having these children from these under-aged girls.

“Some of these mothers go through the time of wasting the police’s time investigating and all that. But they’re not serious about having these men prosecuted. So it’s unfortunate,” the Anglican cleric added.

Bannister explained that sometimes the exploitation of the girls was as a result of parents working and the children managing to give their grandparents the slip.

“They live near the blocks. They’re getting money. They get hooked into that culture to which people turn a blind eye and it is people whom they trust who exploit these girls who are gullible.

Support system

“You can’t blame what happens on the girls.

A lot of them are so young and so innocent and don’t know what’s going on. They get sucked into these things.”

He pointed out that he created a support system for the juveniles who appeared before him, drawing on police, the Barbados Probation Service and the National Council on Substance Abuse.

“I’ve had support systems for teenagers, like the females that got pregnant, where we try to help them by providing counselling – psychological and otherwise. I also demanded that the fathers come to my court so I can lay down the law and the rules in terms of support.

“Some parents don’t like to report it to the police, because, obviously, of the economic factors, so on a promise of support, sometimes the parents won’t report it. To the girls, I would ask, ‘Who is the man?’ or they might not even know who the man is, maybe somebody they met on a minibus or something like that,” Bannister said.

He and others in the support group had put together money and purchased baby items to assist some of the girls.

“I even had a youngster who came back to court to show me the baby. That’s nice. It’s sad, though, but I would always emphasise to them that that’s not the end of the road, but that they would have to work a little harder and not to compound it by getting another one right after that. But in a lot of cases we need to have these men brought before the court,” he added.

Bannister was similarly concerned that the girls were now also smoking and forthright in admitting it before the court. That, he added, could be because of the mixed message sent by the relaxing of the drug offences where people can be ticketed rather than charged for a certain amount of cannabis.

“Every street corner, every block, you see people smoking. So a lot of these children are addicted to drugs as well. When you ask the girls if they smoke, they say ‘yes’, they smoke. Because, you see, the mixed messages are being sent out there. You get caught with a small amount on you, you’re going to be cleared,” he said.