The 14-year-old?s very angry father told us that he had given the suspect lodging two weeks ago after he had been laid off a live-in job on a farm on the Northern Highway. He did not know, he said, that the man was believed to be a child molester. Thinking back, he said, when the man had money he bought gifts that looked as if they were for children.

Police, however, refused to release his son, telling him that the children were needed for an ID parade tomorrow, and that his son was being held for committing a ?mischievous act,? but not clarifying what the act was.

The father said that when he reached home this afternoon for lunch, he met a note from his son on the computer that said ?Dad, I am with ??.?

The father said his son told him that when police stopped the vehicle, the suspect told them, ?Noh worry, everything straight!?

A report was made yesterday, Wednesday, by a 15-year-old male resident of Belize City that he was abducted in the said red van by three male persons and taken to Burrell Boom, where he was sodomized.

Amandala spoke today with Police liaison officer, G. Michael Reid. He said that they were able to get a license plate number from the teenager, and they managed to trace the vehicle.

Police said in a press release dated today that the teenager was taken to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital, where a doctor certified that he had been sodomized. They also reported that the boy was picked up in the first instance from a location on Partridge Street.

The teenager, according to police, reported that he and a male friend were walking along Partridge Street sometime around 3:00 p.m. yesterday, when a van pulled up next to them and the driver asked him who he was. He said that when he replied, the driver told him that he, the driver, was his uncle, and that he and his friend should get into the vehicle, because he was going to give them a lift home.

Police reported that the boy said that when he and his friend got into the van, they realized that there were two other men in the rear of the vehicle. He said that his friend got scared and jumped out of the van, and the van then sped off. The boy added that he was taken to Burrell Boom, where the driver sodomized him.

Amandala spoke with the teenager today, and he gave a somewhat different report from that he gave to police. He said that the incident occurred sometime around 3:00 p.m. on Tuesday, and not Wednesday. He said he was not picked up from Partridge Street, but from an area near the Barracks. He also said that he is not from the St. Martin de Porres area.

(We will call the victim Adrian, and his friend Mark.)

Adrian, who is still, of course, shaken up from the ordeal, told us that Mark came to his house on Tuesday, June 28, and asked him, Adrian, to go swimming with him at the Barracks. Adrian said that he went along with Mark, 13. Mark usually sells bread and bun for his mother. Adrian did not swim because he had not asked his father for permission.

Adrian said that as Mark was getting out of the water, they both noticed a man, who had two male persons with him, heading in their direction and dressed for swimming.

?The driver approached me and asked if we wanted to go to Corozal with them,? said Adrian.

?Mark said that he would have to ask his mother, and so the men placed our bicycles in the rear of the van and headed to go to Mark?s home. A short distance away from Mark?s home, the driver stopped the van and allowed us to take our bicycles out, so that we could have gone to Mark?s mother?s house on bicycles so that nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

?Before we left, Mark told the men that they would have to purchase his bread and bun so that his mother would allow him to go. He [the man (the driver)] never answered, but we still went to Mark?s mother, who said ?no?.?

Adrian said that they got back into the van, parked on Mahogany Street, and Mark again asked if they were going to buy his bread and bun. The man then replied, ?Me nuh wah buy no pile a bun.?

?This is when Mark said that he was not going, and attempted to get out of the van. The passenger in the front seat dropped his chair onto Mark?s foot, hindering them from getting out of the van.

?The man in the back seat then grabbed Mark and I, but Mark escaped through the window. When he jumped through the window, the man in the front seat locked it.

?They then sped off up Mahogany Street. The driver shouted at me and told me not to make a sound. One of the men was dropped off near BelChina Bridge, and the other one was dropped off on Coney Drive. The driver then shouted at me, instructing me to get into the front seat next to him.

?I squeezed between the two front seats, and made my way into the vacant seat. He warned me not to make a sound when he stopped on the road for gas, and I was very scared. On the way he said ?Mek a squeeze it.? I asked him ?Squeeze what?? and he said ?That,? pointing to my private part. I said ?No.?

?I was taken to a lot with two houses a short distance away from the entrance of Burrell Boom. There were two houses in the yard – a large cement one and a small board house. He took me into the small one and I was even more scared. This time I thought that he was going to take my life.

?I sat in a small wooden chair that was in the house and he bent over me with his arms on both handles of the chair and tried to touch me. I shrugged [him off] and he began kissing me on my neck and lips. I pushed away from him and went and stood in a corner of the house. He followed me and began to ?feel mi up.? I walked away again and went back into the chair. He pulled up another chair and picked up my foot in an attempt to put it in his lap. I got up and this time he picked me up and took me into the room, where he threw me onto the bed.

?He did not take off his clothes or mine. He zipped down his pants, to pull his penis out and pulled down my pants and underwear and raped me.

?He took me home sometime around 9:00 that night, because my father was worried and told me the time [when I reached]. I was dropped off around the curve from my home.?

Adrian describes the person to be of dark complexion, strongly built, about 5 feet in height with a beard. He added that he was very scared when he told the police the lie that the man said that he was his uncle.

The teenager?s father said that he just hopes that the police can arrest and charge the culprit. He added that he has done his own investigation and found out that the guy is a predator who preys on young male children.

The father said that he needs to see justice done, as he cannot promise what he will do in the event justice fails.