From Caribbean360

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Wednesday May 6, 2015 – Police in Trinidad and Tobago have charged a nine-year-old boy for stealing a car, but questions are being raised about the legality of the move.

The child took a neighbour’s car and went joyriding on Sunday afternoon, driving along a busy thoroughfare and stopping on Alverado Street in Penal, in the south of Trinidad, only after he struck a parked vehicle.

According to Newsday, he was not hurt in the accident and the other car sustained minor damage.

The boy had reportedly driven away the car after seeing it parked in the owner’s yard with the key in the ignition.

The minor on Monday went before a court and was placed on a bond of TT$1,000 (US$158) on a charge of larceny of a motor vehicle. However, the magistrate dismissed additional charges of dangerous driving, driving without a driver’s permit and driving without insurance.

The boy’s mother told the newspaper that her son was fascinated with fast driving and car video games, but she did not know he could drive or that he had taken the car.

Newsday also reported that police went to the scene of the accident and found the nine-year-old and took him to the station, but he subsequently managed to slip away. He was subsequently found at the home of an elderly relative several miles away.

However, in an interview with Newsday, two attorneys suggested that under a principle in law known as doli incapax (not capable of committing a crime), a child 10 years or younger could not be legally responsible for his or her actions and therefore could not be convicted of committing a criminal offence.

“Can the police say this boy, when he took the car for a joyride, had intentions to permanently deprive the owner? The principle of doli incapax is more applicable here, than in a strict liability offence such as breaking a traffic light or driving without a licence and insurance,” senior criminal lawyer Subhas Panday told the newspaper.

A similar view was expressed by Shaun Vidale Teekasingh although he noted that there have been cases where children below the age of 10 have been successfully prosecuted because the prosecution was able to establish that the minors’ mental state of mind was sound enough for them to know that what they were doing was wrong.
For more on this story go to: http://www.caribbean360.com/news/nine-year-old-charged-with-car-theft-in-tt#ixzz3ZTHg5LFO