Police have vowed to put a teenage gang behind bars after a horrific robbery and rape of a young woman at her Chippingham home last night.
Officers have confirmed that one juvenile is in custody and an island-wide manhunt is on for the other two minors who are believed to be connected with the incident.
Police have confirmed the identiies of the two suspects who are reportedly 16 and 17 years of age.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Reginald Ferguson reported that around 3:40pm Wednesday, a taxi-driver picked up three young Bahamian men from a hotel on Paradise Island. They claimed they wanted to go to the airport.
When the taxi was on Thompson Boulevard, one of the men pulled out a handgun and forced the driver to park on the side of the road.
Mr. Ferguson said they robbed the driver of $225 and a small undertermined amount of cash belonging to the cab company.
“They then stuffed the driver in the trunk of his cab and drove to a location in the Chippingham area where they went into a house and raped a 22-year-old female.
“Someone who was in the house or who saw something suspicious phoned the police who responded promptly,” he said.
The swift response resulted in the arrest of a 16-year-old male who was reportedly acting as “look-out” in the stolen cab which was still parked outside the the house when the police arrived.
Officers freed the cab driver from the trunk of his car, but for some unexplained reason were unabe to apprehend the two juveniles who were in the house. They escaped.
The number of rapes, many by home inavasion, have increased dramatically in the Bahamas over the past few years. Sociologists believe it is due to the lack of respect that woman are accorded in the island nation. An extremely dysfunctional judicial system with numerous corrupt lawyers and several crooked judges is also a big problem.
Women are discriminated against in the Constitution of the Bahamas much like how they were treated as second-class citizens under the brutal Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Crimes against women often go unpunished and sexual harrassment is rampant in the workplace.
