BY FABIAN LEDGISTER, Staff Reporter
WITH SEX SCANDALS rocking churches islandwide, another member of the 'righteous flock' has been accused of sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl.
Christopher Shirley, 42, labourer, messenger, and professed member of a Seventh Day Adventist Church along Arnold Road, is now behind bars after being charged with sexually assaulting the infant.
Reports from the Centre for the Investigations of Sexual Offence and Child Abuse (CISOCA), are on June 27, 2006, about 7:10 p.m., the accused, who is a live-in caretaker employed to the victim's mother, was at home with the child, when the mother left to buy goods. The child was then sexually assaulted.
It is alleged that in an effort to comfort the traumatised girl, she was being caressed and kissed when the mother walked in.
After seeking advice from police, the child's mother made a report to CISOCA last week. Following investigations Shirley was arrested.
An investigating officer at the centre remembered the reaction of the man who professed his faith to the officers, in an attempt to seek mercy from the charges. "When we charged him, him have the nerve to remind us that he's a sheep in God's flock, and that we should remember that when we are continuing with our case and exercise mercy," said the officer. Shirley is to appear in court on August 3.
CHRISTIANS IN TROUBLE
Inspector Duetress Foster-Gardener, CISOCA head, says she recently ended a case against a minister of religion (who was accused of sexually assaulting a minor), and now has multiple cases of pastors and church 'elders' before the courts on charges ranging from carnal abuse to rape.
The inspector says she is alarmed at the repeated incidents of these 'men of faith,' being implicated in sexual offences upon minors. "Is it that the ones who profess to be carrying the message of God are using this authority to satisfy their own depraved desires? If this is what Christians are becoming then I am very worried," said Foster-Gardener.
Oraine Ellis, one of the pastors now before the courts, was charged in 2005 with eight counts of indecent assault, and two counts of carnal abuse. One case of indecent assault has so far been disposed of, after Ellis entered a guilty plea. He is scheduled for court on August 29.
Herman Wallace, a church elder at an Adventist Church in the Waterhouse area, is also before the courts, charged with rape and indecent assault. He returns to court on July 25.
After media circulation of the now infamous footage of a 13-year-old girl being gang raped in the presence of a deacon of the Dayton Avenue Church Of God, a high ranking church member is now in police custody with two teenage boys.
"They are still being questioned, and it is likely that they will be put before the court on Wednesday," said Insp. Foster-Gardener.
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