00:00This was the headline in October of 2014. Sean Mohammed, a 13-year-old boy at the time,
00:06accused of raping a seven-year-old girl, charged and granted bail,
00:10which the police prosecutor had asked the court not to grant.
00:14More than a decade later, Mohammed, now a man, is finally vindicated.
00:19His attorney, Prakash Ramada, revealing the decision of the court.
00:23We are dealing with a matter where a high court judge this week
00:26ruled that the prosecution of a 13-year-old for the charge and offense of rape was malicious.
00:35The story of how he became the person charged for the offense is coming to light for the first time.
00:42It stemmed from the boy's mother, Donna Mohammed, noticing a girl child in their hometown
00:48and having a feeling that something was wrong and inquiring further.
00:52It turned out that this child had been abused in multiple ways. As a result of her inquiries
00:59and basically poking around, a fabricated
01:06allegation was made against her son, as I repeat, 13 years old at the time.
01:10Ramada says the boy's mother took him to the police station to clear up the allegations,
01:15but what happened next stunned them.
01:18The police took a view in this matter that I thought was atrocious.
01:24They interviewed the supposed victim who was seven years old at the time
01:29and obtained a statement from her. In that statement, there were major gaps in the evidence.
01:37And the inconsistencies continued.
01:39They did no DNA testing which was available. They did not interview even the homeowner where this
01:47incident is supposed to have occurred during a children's party that evening.
01:53The date given for the alleged incident was wrong.
01:58Donna Mohammed, the mother, had told the police that
02:01her son was at the grandmother's at that date and at that time.
02:06Ramada reveals that during an investigation by the principal of the school the girl was attending
02:11for a wound the child had, a different story came out.
02:15And it turned out when that investigation ensued, that was the father who had been raping her
02:20repeatedly.
02:21In the decision to acquit Mohammed, Ramada states that the judge ruled that investigators failed to
02:26investigate the case appropriately and did not obtain enough evidence for prosecution.
02:31The judge further awarded aggravated damages. But it was years of trauma for Mohammed,
02:38who was made to injure a cell with feces for three days, denied food, his medication for epilepsy
02:44and branded a rapist by his community and the wider society.
02:49To the extent that basically he had stopped trying, he had become a recluse, stopped playing,
02:55stopped being among his colleagues, his friends and it has damaged his life almost irreparably.
03:02His parents had decided early on to have only one child to ensure that they were able to provide
03:09as best as they could. The ordeal faced by their son carried with it a heavy mental toll,
03:15which his mom is now making public.
03:17Children's authority has failed our children over and over again. This thing has gotten so
03:25bad where I was admitted at the psychiatric ward in San Fernando for five days year before.
03:31This 12 years felt like 12 lifetime.
03:36She's uncertain if her family will ever regain normalcy. As for the little girl who should be
03:42around the age of 19 now. The system failed her. Then she's on the streets today with her two-year
03:49-old baby.
03:50Meanwhile, Ramada says people look to the police service for their safety.
03:54My team and I have been working on several other matters of atrocious police conduct of a small few
04:01that corrodes the level of confidence that we should have. Ramada calls under TTPS to clean up its act
04:08and weed them out.
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