CARIBBEAN ROUNDUP
Antigua
A former British police officer was
sent to jail for 15 years for raping a
woman when the two met on a vacation
in Antigua more than four years ago.
Lee Martin-Cramp, 26, who was a
member of the UK Metropolitan Police
Force, will spend his jail time at the
former US Naval Base on the island,
in keeping with an agreement between
local and UK authorities.
According to the
evidence during the
trial, Martin-Cramp
raped the 22-year-old
woman, a foreign student
nurse, during his vacation in May
2015.
The two had met on a dating app
Tinder and went to a bar before going to
her apartment where they chatted and
drank wine before deciding to watch a
movie.
The woman told police the police
officer spiked her drink and when she
left the room to change her clothes and
she noticed the wine had a strange taste
when she returned, but Martin-Cramp
told her he had added some vodka to it,
so she took a few more sips.
She said she subsequently started
feeling dizzy when Martin-Cramp forced
himself on her and when she woke up
later, she was bruised and in pain.
The woman said she maintained
WhatsApp contact with her rapist so
she could eventually get him to admit
to the crime but he pretended that it
never happened.
She then reported the incident to
the police. Martin-Cramp was extradited
from the UK to Antigua and Barbuda
last September to face trail for the
crime and after a seven-day trial two
months ago, he was convicted. He was
sentenced last month. Following his
conviction, he was dismissed from the
Metropolitan Police which he joined the
year before.
Barbados
The Barbados government
is welcoming
support from the
US Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) to
stop the crime wave in the country
where 32 persons have been killed so
far for the year.
Attorney General, Dale Marshall said
he recently held talks with US Ambassador,
Linda Taglialatela during a courtesy
call where he asked her to pursue
the FBI coming to Barbados.
Taglialatela led a delegation that also
included Legal Attaché from the US
Department of Justice Federal Bureau of
Investigation, James Dempsy; Director
of Narcotics and Law Enforcement section
of the US Embassy, Jeanette Juricic
and Economics / Commercial Officer at
Updated daily at www.caribbeanlifenews.com
From left, Prime Minister Mia Mottley standing with cabinet ministers, Dale Marshall, Jerome Walcott and
Trevor Prescod. Photo by George Alleyne
the US Embassy, Rachel Myers.
According to a statement issued
by the AG’s office, Marshall has also
requested that training assistance be
extended to the Royal Barbados Police
Force’s Financial Intelligence Crime
Unit (FICU) and the Fraud Investigations
Unit.
The statement said that Marshall
admitted that the 32 murders committed
so far for this year were a “tremendous
concern” for the Mia Mottley
government, some of the cases were
quite horrific.
He said the government was equally
concerned about corrupt practices in
the country.
Caribbean
The Trinidad-based
Caribbean Public
Health Agency (CARPHA)
is urging Caribbean
countries to
enhance disease surveillance at ports of
entry and at health facilities following
the categorization of the current outbreak
of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD)
as a public health emergency.
Recently, the World Health Organization
(WHO) declared the current EVD
outbreak in the Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC) as a Public Health Emergency
of International concern.
The declaration followed a message
of the International Health Regulations
Emergency Committee for EVD in the
Caribbean L 4 ife, Aug. 9-15, 2019 Q
DRC.
The committee cited recent developments
in the outbreak in making
its recommendation, including the
first confirmed case in Goma, a city of
almost two millions people on the border
of Rwanda and the gateway to the
rest of DRC and the world.
Grenada
Grenada recorded a
slight increase in visitor
arrivals during the
first six months of this
year when compared
to the same period in 2018, according
to figures released by the island’s tourism
authority.
The Grenada Tourism Authority
(GTA) said on the heels of double-digit
growth and a landmark total visitor
arrival of 528,077 in 2018, the authority
is delighted to report positive growth in
total visitor arrivals of one percent for
the first half of 2019.
It said the stayover market, which
represents the sector’s most lucrative
visitor, grew by 3.81 percent with 82,
399 staying in hotels, guesthouses and
villa accommodations. The average
length of stay of these visitors from the
source markets is 8.5 days.
GTA said that United States accounted
for 45 percent of the market share,
followed by the United Kingdom with 17
percent and Canada 12 percent.
The GTA also said the cruise ship
sector also experienced growth for the
same period.
Jamaica
Jamaica is reporting a further reduction
in the unemployment rate to a new
record low of 7.8 percent.
This is contained in the Statistical
Institute of Jamaica ‘s Labor Force Survey,
the figure is two percentage points
lower than the 9.8 percent recorded for
the corresponding period last year, and
0.2 percent lower than the out-turn for
January.
Director General,
Carol Coy, said the
number of unemployed
persons as of April, fell
by 25,900 or 19.7 percent
to 105,900, relative to 2018.
She said male unemployment rate
declined by 18 percent points to 5.5
percent, while the corresponding figure
for females, fell by 2.1 percentage points
to 10.6 percent.
Coy said the number of unemployed
males decreased by 13,000 to 39,900 in
April 2019. Over the same period, the
number of unemployed females was
65,600, which was a decline of 12,900.
The total labor force increased to
1,349,900 persons, which is 4,000 more
than in 2018.
St. Vincent
Two men have filed court proceed-
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