On April 18th of this year two girls, one 11 and the other 13 went missing while on their way to school. A couple of days after disappearing they returned home and, publicly, that would have been the end of the story. The matter seemed to have ended on a happy note. But that's not their story. Yesterday one of the little girls accompanied by her father and grandparents visited us to say that in fact it was not that simple, in fact it has been very difficult. Tonight, the family is falling apart, all because an angry father took a stand for his little girl. Alfonso Noble reports.
Alfonso Noble Reporting, [alfnoble@yahoo.com]
This 11 year old whose identity we can not reveal recalls that she and her 13 year old friend were on their way to school at James Garbutt on Albert Street West on April 18 when they were forced into a taxi by two young men. At knifepoint they were taken down Berkeley Street an on to East Canal.
Rape Victim,
"He told he would kill me with this knife that he had. So we walked and we walked pass the canal side and then the taxi was waiting for us. They told me to get into the taxi and we got into the taxi. Then after that they took us to a house in King's Park and four boys were there. They took me to a room and they took my friend to another room. They told us not to scream and then they told us to change our clothes. They told us we would stay there all day. We stayed there while they were talking and playing games. Then we came out in the night around 7 to buy food but only for them, they didn't give us anything to eat to so we stayed there."
At around 1 on the following day she says the men again took them, this time to Sarteneja Village where they were held in a house in the village until the following morning when a village woman came to help them.
Rape Victim,
"They told us in Sarteneja that they were going to kill us. Then a lady came, it was already around 5 in the morning, and the lady come and the men they hid. The lady asked what we were doing in there and we told her that some boys brought us here to kill us. The lady then took us to her house and then we stayed right there and when the bus was passing to take people to Orange Walk, we took that bus and we didn't see them again. We went into the bus and we went to Orange Walk and then in Orange Walk we found a lady and we told her we were looking for the police station. She took us to the police station and from the police station they brought us to Belize and we met with the police at CIB."
That's the terrifying tale of this little girl and one that she passed on to her father Oscar Bonilla. Bonilla says that on the 24th of April his investigations led him and the father of the other child to the two young men who had sexually abused their children.
Oscar Bonilla, Father of Rape Victim
"After we made the report at the police station we saw one of the guys and I caught him and you and anybody can understand that we are fathers and we felt what happened to the kids. The father of the other girl and I caught the guy and then the father of the other girl beat the man and then we took the man to the police station. But the problem is that we didn't go to the police station, a traffic officer went with us, and he handcuffed the two guys and we took them to the police station."
That would have been the end of a very bad ordeal both for the child and her father but it turns out it was the beginning of a even worse nightmare. This seemingly heroic action by a father bent on protecting his child and avenging the wrong turned out to be a mistake - at least in the eyes of the law. On the evening of that very day the police came knocking on his doors.
Oscar Bonilla,
"The same Sunday, April 24th, around 12:30 CIB came for the two families and then they took us to the police station and told me to take out my father's vehicle. They said we kidnapped the boy and we hurt the boy and so the officers said we have to stay in the police station. After that they didn't say anything and then we got charged for kidnapping of the boy."
Bonilla, his mother and father as well as the father of the 13-year-old child were served with charges of kidnapping of the 18 and 16 year olds who had abused of their children. Bonilla says he's spent 2 days in police custody and 20 days in jail
Oscar Bonilla,
"I stayed 20 days in jail for nothing, for nothing other than protecting my child. When police took us to the police station the two men were in custody at that time and we took the two girls and the two girls said in front of the police officers that that is the two boys who abused them. The police officers told me and the father of the other girl that we were going to be charged and we were going to jail and the young came out free the next day after this thing happened. They are able to walk around, they pass in front of my house, they molest my little girl, they molest my mother, and they tell me stupid things in front of my house; the police caused this.
From the next day, from the 25th of April they walked free on the street like nothing happened."
And while those who've totally taken advantage of an 11 and 13-year-old walk the streets free the matter is compounded because Bonilla's original report is nowhere to be found.
Oscar Bonilla,
"From the moment when I made the report, that night when I got to the police station they didn't have the report and I am 100% sure we did the report in the afternoon. But in the night when they came for us, that report disappeared."
Disappeared along with Bonilla's former life that is now just a memory as he is now frustrated, jobless and simply has nowhere to turn.
Oscar Bonilla,
"The police confiscated the vehicle that we use for work and right now its been three months and no one in my family has been able to work. As a consequence of this, of what the police did to us, our life has changed. From the 24th of April our life has changed completely because all of this happened. The place where I worked for 8 years, as a consequence of this I lost my job. Right now its hard on my family and me. I cannot pay rent, I have my kids, my kids have to go school this year and I haven't paid no school fees, and I don't have money to buy books; I don't have money to buy nothing.
Police say they work with the community but in this time I don't see the police working with me. If I know that this would have happened to me and my family, I would have just left it like that but my point is that I know Belize and many countries protect the kids. I think that from the moment I went to the police station and made the report, I think my little girl would have been protected but that didn't happen. That didn't happen."
Oscar Bonilla, Angel Corales, Irma Maldonado and Manuel Chinchilla are all out on bail and they are to reappear in Magistrate's Court on the 25th of this month.
7NEWS produced for broadcast by News Director Jules Vasquez
Edited and Prepared for the internet by Keith Swift
