The Tribune

By AVA TURNQUEST

Tribune Chief Reporter

aturnquest@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Marvin Dames yesterday pledged the government will establish a sex offender registry before the year’s end.

The plan for a sex offender registry was introduced in 2013 with an amendment to the Sexual Offences Act after the murder of 11-year-old Marco Archer by a serial child predator.

However, it was never created by the previous administration.

“We still don’t have it but it’s coming,” Mr Dames told reporters outside the House of Assembly yesterday.

“We will bring it, and we’re bringing it very shortly.”

When pressed for a timeline, Mr Dames said: “It can’t be (tomorrow), the Attorney General’s Office will have to do some things.”

“The AG and I have had a conversation on that already, and we will give the notification that we would wish to proceed as quickly as possible with that registry.

“I can assure the Bahamian public that that registry will come, and it will come this year, very soon, very soon.”

Marco’s killer, Kofhe Goodman, was sentenced to 55 years in prison on Monday following a retrial. The seven years he spent in custody will be deducted from the sentence.

He had been sentenced to death after his first trial over Marco’s killing, however that was overturned on appeal.

The 11-year-old’s death in 2011 gripped the nation, and also sparked amendments to the Child Protection Act, which established a MARCO Alert system for missing children.

The Child Protection Amendment Act 2014 came into operation on August 26, 2015. The government implemented the MARCO Alert system in July 2016.

Yesterday, Mr Dames said the administration had been tied up with its compendium of financial/crime bills but held the registry as a high priority.

“We’re doing it right now,” he said, “we’re doing it right now. The AG and I have been talking about it, we had any number of significant bills that we had to (deal with), especially this compendium of financial bills, financial/crime bills that we had to get through to meet certain requirements so this is very important to us, the registry, and Bahamian people can expect to see it very shortly, we’re in motion on that.”