A group of pastors on Wednesday expressed shock over a recent court ruling involving Russian dancers and demanded that the government crack down on facilities that promote stripping.
Speaking on behalf of the group, Pastor Cedric Moss of Kingdom Life World Outreach Centre said the ruling handed down by Magistrate Renee McKay in favour of the Russian dancers reveals a serious weakness in the prosecutorial system in the Magistrate’s court.
“We believe this raises grave concerns for the future impact upon the legal resource Christians and other morally minded Bahamians may have in combating the increasing influx of morally degrading activities in The Bahamas,” Mr. Moss said.
On September 21, six Russian dancers, their manager and six staff members of the Butterfly Club, appeared before Magistrate McKay on charges ranging from indecent behaviour to abetting indecent behavior.
The magistrate ruled that the prosecution did not prove a case against them and acquitted them all.
The pastors said the ruling left them stunned.
“We are being assisted by lawyers in analyzing the actual ruling of Magistrate McKay and therefore do not wish to comment specifically about the details of the case at this time,” Pastor Moss said.
The pastors suggested that the court proceedings were unfair because the dancers were represented by a prominent attorney, Wayne Munroe, and the prosecution was represented by a police officer who does not necessarily have any legal training.
“In our view, it was a waste of resources by the police to do surveillance and raid the club and a further waste of the court’s time to have last week’s outcome, which we believe was largely due to the sad and unacceptable practice of allowing police officers who are not lawyers to prosecute cases,” Pastor Moss said.
“These police officers are pitted against professional lawyers who clearly have an unfair advantage because of their years of legal training. Therefore, in the interest of justice and fair play, we will be calling on the attorney general and The Bahamas Bar Council to work together to discontinue this practice.”
The group of five pastors expressed concerns over the proliferation of clubs, events and activities that are built around commercial sexual entertainment.
Pastor Moss said these types of activities lead to prostitution and further the degradation and exploitation of women and young girls, while encouraging violence and abuse towards them.
The group also announced that it intends to lobby to have certain laws amended.
Pastor Lyall Bethel, who also attended the press conference, said the fines for anyone found guilty of the charges relating to the Russian dancers’ case are so low, they do not serve as a deterrent.
“We obviously do not take breaches seriously when the fine is set so low that a child could pay it by saving his allowance for two or three weeks,” Pastor Bethel said.
“In this regard we will be calling upon the government to assist the police in their noble work by amending existing laws and passing new laws with [stiffer] fines and prison sentences for those who breach them.”
The pastors said they are afraid that if the trend of seductive clubs continues, the country would begin to see a mirror occurrence similar to what was allowed to happen with illegal gambling.
“We are convinced that in spite of the degree to which our national moral standards have fallen, the majority in our country are morally minded people who do not support the further pollution of our nation’s moral water table by operations and activities like those of the Butterfly Club,” Pastor Bethel said.
“We believe that it is incumbent upon the government and all decent minded, law abiding citizens in all spheres of society to actively do all they can to resist the efforts of a few persons who are driven by financial greed, who lack a moral compass and any regard for the dignity of women and sexuality to continue to further erode the moral fabric of our nation.”
Pastor Moss stressed that the intention of the group is not to have female strippers locked up, but instead go after club owners who are using the females for financial gains.
“We see the women as victims,” he said. “We don’t see them as individuals who we are trying to seek to punish. We believe that the focus of punishment or penalty should be on the operators.”
Other pastors in the group included Allan Lee and Gil Maycock.
By: Bianca Symonette, The Bahama Journal
