There were 12 people charged with a total of 19 counts of separate alleged incidents in April, latest statistics from the Of­fice of the Director of Public Pros­ecutions have revealed.

The alleged offences were rape (11), attempted rape (1), abduction with intent to rape (1) defilement (1), and sexual assault (5).

The following data is authorised for release by the ODPP and relates to the number of formal indict­ments (Information) filed in the High Courts of Fiji by the Director of Public Prosecutions throughout the month.

This data is confined to alleged in­cidents of serious sexual offences only. There was one accused person who was under the age of 18 years. He was charged with one count of abduction and one count of defile­ment of a 16-year-old girl. (NB: The offence of abduction is recorded separately).

There were 11 victims of the 19 separate alleged incidents of whom eight victims were under the age of 18 years.

There were three male victims and eight female victims while all 12 accused persons were male.

There were three alleged incidents where the victims and the accused were related.

In one incident a 32-year-old uncle was charged with the rape of his four-year-old niece, while another 48-year-old uncle was charged with representative counts for raping his 15-year-old nephew.

There was one incident where a 39-year-old was charged with sex­ual assault. He is alleged to have sexually assaulted his 14-year-old sister-in-law.

There were two alleged incidents where the accused and victims were neighbours. In one alleged incident a 19-year-old was charged with raping a four-year-old girl while in another case a 24-year-old was charged with raping a six-year-old boy.

There was one incident where a 25-year-old man allegedly raped a 15-year-old boy in the Northern di­vision.

There was one incident where a 21-year-old man allegedly attacked a 24-year-old female in the street and raped her. This alleged incident happened during daylight hours in the Western division.

Refer to the table entitled ODPP Rape and Sexual Offences April 2018 for a break-down of these sta­tistics.

* Please note that a number of rape victims as well as victims under the age of 18 years and victims in domestic relationship were also victims of other serious sexual offences.
Similarly, a number of accused persons were also charged with more than one offence. Source: Office of the Director of Public Prosecution

Source: ODPP

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