A man who on Monday abducted and attempted to rape a 17-year-old Mount Alvernia High School student is now behind bars, thanks to the quick thinking of Montego Bay’s Transport Authority.

The drama, which unfolded on Monday morning when the girl accepted a ride from the motorist in Sam Sharpe Square, saw a group of six inspectors in the Transport Authority’s Nissan Irvan motor van zipping through the communities of Rose Heights and Farm Heights in pusuit of the rapist whom they caught up with in front of the DeOkoro Magnate school for the gifted on Brandon Hill.

It was there, before the curious eyes of a bevy of spectators, that they collared the man with the help of two members of the Island’s Special Jamaica Constabulary Force.

“To see it was something else,” an eye-witness told the Observer West. It took all of them to overcome the big brute who was fighting back.”

Ralston Smith, the Transport Authority’s regional manager, told Observer West that his team had been combing the second city ‘for vehicles operating contrary to the terms and contract of their road licenses and unlicensed robots operating as public passenger vehicles.’

It was while monitoring the activities of a car which they suspected of operating illegally, that they happened upon the girl.

She had just managed to elude the rapist, who had mistakenly thought that the TA had been following him, stopped and sprung the hood, ostensibly to check out engine troubles in an attempt to throw them off.
When she told them her story, they chased and apprehended him.

During the initial stages of the breathtaking chase, some eyewitnesses became incensed over what they misconstrued as the TA’s attempt to ‘run down robot taxi operator’.

“(At first) there was an aggressive response to what we were doing. But when they recognised what was happening they supported us,” said Smith.

“According to Corporal Green, the man is to face an ID parade for other rapes and abductions that have taken place in and around Montego Bay.

In the meantime the girl’s relieved mother is thanking the TA and the police.

“She was supposed to sit her exam yesterday and because of that (attempted rape) she was not able to do it until this morning (Tuesday). When me hear me head hurt me whole night last night (Monday night) because me say she could a dead. Me thank the Transport Authority and the police,” she said.

According to the student’s mother, she was told by her daughter that the alleged kidnapper pulled up beside her in Sam Sharpe Square asking for directions to her school. When she began to direct him, he offered to drop her off at the school. When she realised that he was speeding past the school and asked where he was going, he locked the doors and asked if she had ever been raped.

Had it not been for the TA’s diligence, there’s no telling what her fate might have been. Since the beginning of the year 15 cases of rape – the latest being on Wednesday night – and seven cases of carnal abuse have been reported to the police in St James.
A smiling Smith told the Observer West that he was glad things turned out the way they did.

“It is our mantra to protect the public at all times. I have to lift my hat to the team for being so resolute, persistent and persevered to the end to ensure that the young lady had some satisfaction in the end,” he said.