Policeman Gets Two Years for Sexually Assaulting a Minor

A police officer from Santa Clara Village, Corozal District is serving a two-year sentence at the Belize Central Prison after being found guilty of sexually assaulting a minor.  Twenty-seven-year-old Melvin Canul was convicted and sentenced to jail time this morning when he appeared unrepresented in the Belize City Magistrate’s Court.  The police constable was accused of squeezing the buttocks of a seventeen-year-old girl back in September 2023.  The incident happened near Lopez Mateo Park in the King’s Park area.  In her report, the teenager said that shortly after four p.m. on September twelfth, she was at a police booth on 17^th Street where she was returning a flag she had borrowed from a cadet instructor.  While folding the flag, a Hispanic officer whom she did not know, passed by and squeezed her on the left side of her buttocks.  When she turned around, she observed that the policeman was standing behind her.  Canul was subsequently arraigned and pleaded not guilty to the charge of sexual assault and was offered and met bail in the sum of three thousand dollars.  In court today, Chief Magistrate Jayani Wegodapola found Canul guilty of the charge and sentenced him to two years in prison.