The family of another victim of rapist Jeffrey Barnes has told their story of the convict’s violent attack on their 17-year-old in her own home.

The assault, on a member of Barnes’ own family, came just days before the serial rapist’s attack last Saturday on a 49-year-old at Admiral’s Landing, itself just hours after Barnes had tried to lure an 11-year-old girl in Prospect’s Mahogany Way into the red Honda Civic he was driving.

Asking anonymity for both himself and his stepdaughter victim, the man said the incident had occurred last Thursday at her home, shared with her 23-year-old sister.

“He has access to my stepdaughter, meaning he can take advantage of her,” he said. “Her would go to her home and hang around. At one point, last week she lost her house key and Jeffrey Barnes was the last one in the house.

“He was in on Wednesday night, and on Thursday, she told me she couldn’t find her key.  On Thursday night, he came by the house.”

The 17-year-old had come home in the evening, unable to unlock the front door, the stepfather said. Ultimately, however, she got inside and spent a routine evening. She and her older sister went to bed at their usual hour.

“He came by about 2am on Thursday night [early Friday morning], when they were already in bed”. Barnes, he said, crept into her room, raping her in her own bed.

“After it happened, she did not tell my wife,” the man said, “I have had enough contact with police through the years to know that people don’t always report this kind of thing because, in some cases, they are ashamed. She was afraid that people might think badly of her, so she didn’t make any noise about it.”

Finally, he said, on Saturday about 7pm, after police had received reports about Barnes’ morning movements, “she told my wife. It was hard for her to speak. As soon as I heard the news I called the police and informed them.”

On Monday, RCIPS Detective Superintendant Marlon Bodden told a press gathering that “at 8:15 the same evening,” Saturday 29 October, “we received a report from a family member that [Barnes] had sexually assaulted a family member,” although the senior officer was careful to say that the report had not necessarily coincided with the incident, nor that the informant had been the victim.

“Two CID [Criminal Investigation Department] officers” appeared at the family’s door about 2pm the next afternoon, the stepfather said, taking statements and completing a report.

The stepdaughter, he said, “on Friday was ok at that point,” after the attack, but before her confession. On Tuesday, however, just three days ago, “I was home and said to my wife ‘let’s go get her’. We went to her place and she was with a friend and misbehaving. She was drinking, drinking, drinking. She was hiding and would not talk to me,” he said, distraught by developments.

“She got really angry with me and was slapping, hitting, kicking me, so I held her and my wife called the police. It took half-an-hour before two CID guys came.

“The police held her down and she was fighting so hard that I had to sit on her and hold her hands behind her back. She was spitting and screaming. We spent an hour-and-a half holding her and almost needed to handcuff her just to calm her down.”

Finally, he said, police called an ambulance, moving the step-daughter to George Town Hospital where, after admission, doctors finally calmed her.

The family, he said knew Barnes, ‘and they know he’s really sick. He was in prison for rape and then he comes out and does it again. He needs help because jail didn’t do it. He could stay for 20 years or 50 years and still he could come out and do it again.

“This is really destructive and there is no one that is not crying about it. People like him have to be taken off the street. The law has to put them away. He does this over and over again. Should he be put away for the rest of his life? That should be the sentence for this.

“My stepdaughter,” he said, “is really in trouble. She’s a mess and she needs help.”

Additional reporting by
Tricia Russell-Jones