Officials at the Bahamas Crisis Center are speaking out after a man was sentenced to 5 years in prison after he admitted to molesting his 3 year old twin daughters.

The story was first reported in one of the local morning dailies where the man’s third daughter testified as a witness to the act. Leila Greene said, “when you read the story you find that there was a lot of dysfunction. A man sleeping with the twins. He was in bed and he slept with them. Whatever is happening in that household I’m surprised that he only tried to molest them.”

Bahamas Crisis Center Director, Sandra Dean Patterson spoke to the merits of the Protection Against Violence Act passed in Parliament in 2023. “In that act they created an instrument that was to bring all of the ministries and all of the stakeholders who work on sexual violence together in a commission, we had wanted the authority, but they created a commission. And that commission is where we have to come together to address these horrendous things,” she said.

The five year sentence handed down to the 37 year old father by Justice Cheryl Grant Thompson came after he changed his plea from innoc. Former Magistrate and Bahamas Crisis Center Administrator, Cleopatra Christie said, “the system is overwhelmed with numbers. It’s impossible for a jury to hear hundreds of cases. It just cannot happened. That’s the reality of what we know and which we live in today. So plea bargaining is a very important part of our judicial system.”

In addition to the sentence the man was also order to undergo sexual abuse counselling and a psychological evaluation. He was also order to participate in the prison’s work program.