BVI News

Seek help from ‘colonial masters’ to solve crime – Gov’t told

Rector at the St Georges Episcopal Church, Ian Rock.

With the territory recording 27 unsolved murders over a period of 17 years, it may be time that the Government considers calling on the United Kingdom for help.

This suggestion was put forward by the Rector at St George’s Episcopal Church, Ian Rock while delivering a sermon at the funeral service for 11-year-old murder victim, Trinity Moses on Friday.

“We are a territory, a colony of England, and I believe the time has come for us to make a hotline to military intelligence, to Scotland Yard, and let them deal with the problem that we seem not to be able to deal with,” Rock stated.

“One unsolved death is one too many. One unsolved crime is one too many. Do something and do it now, so that there will never be another Trinity. Let us go to our colonial masters to seek what help they can give,” he added.

Crippling Fear

The clergyman noted further that he fears the crime situation in the territory will only worsen as many persons are afraid to tell what they know to the police.

“Since the death of Trinity, I have spoken to over 30 persons on the streets and different places in society and I asked them, ‘if you knew that someone murdered, would you call the hotline and tell them [police’?”

“You know what the answer was? Everybody said ‘no I wouldn’t do it because I am fearful that I might be targeted because I am not sure that the hotline is confidential’,” Rock noted.

He added: “Thirty people and everyone said the same thing. How can we expect a change in the society when fear is crippling? How can you get it done?”

He appealed to everyone to become agents of justice by speaking out against criminality.

While speaking in the House of Assembly on Friday, Premier Dr. D Orlando Smith revealed that between the year 2000 and 2017, there have been 27 unsolved murders.

Trinity Moses and Franklin Penn became the latest addition to those statistics when gunmen traveling on scooter bikes opened fire on a vehicle in which they were traveling along the West End Public Road on the evening of November 22.

To date, no one has been arrested for the double murder.

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