Member of Parliament for Barbuda Hon. Trevor Walker endorsed the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill 2026 during the afternoon session of the September 28 sitting of the House of Representatives, declaring, "I support the genesis of what we're doing here" and insisting that "we have to have zero tolerance for people who molest minors." But the veteran Barbuda People's Movement (BPM) legislator urged the government to look again at the Bill's indecency provisions which he warned may be "going too far" in an age when children carry more explicit material in their pockets than any adult in the chamber grew up with, and he reminded the House that even in sexual-offence cases, "you do have innocent persons as well."

The Bill, moved by Attorney General Sir Steadroy 'Cutie' Benjamin, amends the Sexual Offences Act of 1995 to impose heavier penalties on those who prey on children — including life imprisonment for sexual intercourse with a minor under 16 and for incest against a person under 18, 20 years for indecent assault and 30 years for serious indecency — alongside evidence reforms admitting "recent complaint" testimony and new jury directions on delayed reporting. The afternoon companion to the Firearms (Amendment) Bill passed earlier the same day. The Bill was passed by the House without any amendments.

"A Pathway for Exceptional Circumstances"

As he had done during the morning's firearms debate, where he championed the safety-valve provision allowing appeals against manifestly excessive minimum sentences, MP Walker returned to a theme that has defined his approach to the government's tough-on-crime legislation: "I always like legislation that has a pathway for exceptional circumstances."

Pointing to litigation "in the Caribbean, North America, around the world," the Barbuda MP told members the statistics in sexual-offence cases are "glaring." By his account, in cases involving a man and a woman, "only 5% of the times... the man is found not guilty. " "My concern is that you do have innocent persons as well," he said. "There are people who end up in situations where, you know, it's unfortunate."

His answer, however, was not to weaken the law but to trust the process it feeds: "When you're tried, and due process is afforded to you, and the result is the result — it is what it is. And if you don't like it, you go to a higher court."

From Playboy Under the Bed to the Phone in Every Hand

MP Walker's most vivid reservation was reserved for clauses 9 and 10 of the Bill — indecent assault and serious indecency, now punishable by 20 and 30 years respectively. The Attorney General had illustrated the provisions with the example of a man making lewd gestures at schoolchildren; MP Walker countered that the world those provisions will police has changed beyond recognition.

"When I was growing up — I'm sorry to be so graphic — it was the Playboy magazine I had to hide from my grandparents under the bed," he recalled. "To get one, you had to be privileged or borrow from somebody." Today, he said, holding up a phone, "these youngsters are exposed to things that we weren't exposed to, from the time they're able to hold one of these... They know more than us."

"In terms of indecent exposure... we might want to look at that at committee stage and see whether or not we're not going too far with that," he urged the Attorney General. "Because really and truly, what the kids are seeing is child's play to what they're exposed to on this." The task, he said, is to "look at the balance of that" — a balance, he conceded, is made harder by behaviour that "clearly is not normal." "Whatever it is that triggers some of these behaviors, clearly, is not normal."

The committee-stage examination he proposed did not happen: unlike the morning's firearms legislation, which was amended three times in committee — once at MP Walker's own urging — the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill passed through committee untouched, with AG Benjamin promising instead to return "within a few weeks to tidy up the areas which are not yet clear."

Agreement Across the Aisle: "200 Is Too Much"

Far from staking out opposition ground, MP Walker aligned himself squarely with the government's case. He said he supported the contribution of Social Transformation Minister Rawdon Turner "in its entirety," along with most of what the Attorney General had presented. MP Walker also credited St. George MP Michael Freeland's observation about the "availability" of sex in modern society, adding his own observation: "Consensual sexual activities today are very much transactional."

The Social Transformation Minister Turner's disclosure of more than 200 reported cases of physical and sexual abuse of children clearly landed. "We need those numbers, Member for St. Peter, to go down rather than go up. 200 is too much," MP Walker said. "That is startling for a small society. And that's only those that are reported... So imagine those that're not reported " — a reference to the international estimate, cited in the debate, of five unreported cases for every report.

Sir V.C. Bird and the Age-of-Consent Question

When Opposition Leader Jamale Pringle used his contribution to call for the age of consent to be raised from 16 to 18 — a push covered in Real News' companion report on the Opposition Leader's contribution — MP Walker reached for history. "The great Sir Vere Cornwall Bird Sr., the father of the nation, insisted that the age of consent stay at 16," he reminded the House. "That argument came up before... in this very parliament — not this building, but this parliament — and it was insisted, for whatever reason the age of consent remain at 16."

But the Barbuda MP did not hide behind precedent: "Time has changed, clearly," he said, calling the Opposition Leader's proposal "a good point, a very valid point" and agreeing that "we ought to look at all the circumstances." The Attorney General would later commit the government to examining an increase to the age of consent.

"Just Like We Did with the Firearm Situation"

MP Walker closed where he began. "I give my support to the efforts being made, and hope that we can even do more to try and curb the situation, just like we did with the firearm situation, to root out those types of traumatic instances afflicting our youngsters," he said.

His contribution capped a long day in which the Barbuda MP had already pressed the government, during the firearms debate, to electronically monitor repeat offenders released from custody — "especially," he said then, "for sexual offenses."