As another teen goes missing, adults say they have lost interest, since there is no punishment for the adults harbouring them

A Bendals family is making an appeal for assistance in locating a
teenage girl and having her returned home.
Relatives of 15-year-old Melissa Williams say the Fourth Form
student left her parents’ home on June 24 and has not been seen or
heard from since.

Her parents are concerned for her safety and well-being and are
seeking residents’ help in finding her. Anyone with information is
asked to contact the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) at
462-3913.

Such incidents involving mostly teenage girls incidents have been
occurring for the past several years. The teens will disappear from
home for up to a week, and then they are either located by
interested persons or return home on their own, unhurt.

In some instances, the girls will go off, again, at a later time.
Many adults believe these disappearances are linked to a sex ring in
which influential people – and even law-enforcement officers – are
involved.

Some persons have shared information on the adults who are
harbouring the girls, as well as pornographic videos in which the
children are featured; however, no police action has been known to
follow.

Several people tell REAL News they are no longer interested in
hearing about these missing children – given that the public is never
advised on where they have been and no one is ever identified, or
prosecuted, for harbouring them.

A professional counselor tells our Newsroom that the Police make
no follow-up reports to the public, because, most likely, they are
protecting the girls’ and their families’ privacy. However, she says,
the adult offenders are not entitled to such consideration unless
charges of a sexual nature are laid.

In this regard, an attorney says, alleged sex offenders are not
entitled to “a blanket application of the privacy provision.” Rather,
he says, there are nuances in the law that allow them to be identified
“up to a certain point in the process.

“But it is the practice of the media to adopt a hands-off policy to
publishing the names of alleged offenders – until they are
convicted,” the attorney says.

He cautions, however, that “even after conviction, depending on the
circumstances – such as the relationship to the victim – the court
might still not allow the offender to be publicly identified.”

The last teen to go missing was a 14-year-old Bathlodge girl,
Tezean Morancie, who was gone for four days – from the morning of
Thursday, June 15, until the early hours of Monday June 19 – after
which she simply turned up at her home.