The police were wrong to charge Reshmi Dipnarine with the rape of a teenaged boy, because there is no such charge in existence in the laws books of Trinidad and Tobago.
Instead, Dipnarine should have been slapped with a charge of indecent assault, said a State attorney who plans to review the indictment.
Last week, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) office asked for the investigation file.
Yesterday, Southern Division Senior Superintendent Gopiechand Ganga confirmed there was a problem.
Dipnarine, of Calcutta Settlement, Freeport, was arrested two Fridays ago and charged with two counts of having sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old schoolboy without his consent.
The alleged rapes occurred at the boy's home last March 30 and April 4.
Dipnarine was granted bail of $80,000 on the condition she stayed far from her alleged victim. But last week, Deputy Commissioner of Police Gilbert Reyes was asked to investigate how his officers came to charge Reshmi, the mother of one, with rape.
Police referred to Section 8 of the Sexual Offences Act, which deals with females having unlawful sex with males.
It states, "Where a female adult has sexual intercourse with a male person who is not her husband and who is under the age of 16 years, she is guilty of an offence, whether or not the male person consented to the intercourse, and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for five years.
A female adult is not guilty of an offence under subsection (1) (a) if she honestly believed that the male person was 16 years of age or more; or (b) if the female adult is not more than three years older than the male person and the court is of the opinion that the evidence discloses that as between the female person and the male person, the female person is not wholly or chiefly to blame.
The teenager in Dipnarine's case is 17, and therefore she could not be charged using these guidelines.
The only way a woman could be charged with rape in Trinidad and Tobago is if she was an accessory to the sexual assault with a man who committed the actual crime.
Dipnarine will reappear in court on July 15.
