Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewelyn has blamed careless parenting and an increasing consumption of pornography as triggers for many of the graphic cases of child-on-child sexual abuse coming before her office.

Llewellyn, who has been a prosecutor for more than 30 years, has observed that there is a new dimension to the cases coming before prosecutors.

“What we are finding now as prosecutors is a heavy sexual component in terms of you see a child of 16 or a person of 17 raping or having sex with a child under 16, which is an offence, and invariably, you will find oral sex being a part of the scenario, or we have even seen buggery,” she said during a virtual meeting of the Rotary Club of Downtown Kingston on Wednesday.

The DPP cited as an example of child predators a case in Westmoreland where a nine-year-old, on her way from school, was sexually assaulted and strangled by a 13-year-old boy.

The accused’s mother is in denial. The case has not yet been heard.

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