By Naneka A. Hoffman
The Proprietor of the Jones Christian Academy, Bishop Emmanuel R. Jones says information regarding a rape incident trending on social media, linking his institution is misleading and false.
According to Bishop Jones, stories from several media outlets saying that a 16-year-old child was raped by a 27- year-old teacher at the Jones Christian Academy are false and deceptive.
He explained that at no time a child was allegedly raped at the Academy or on campus, adding “Our school has been in existence for about 12 years now; we have never had such a situation or incident occurring on our campus.”
Bishop Jones notes that the Jones Christian Academy is a faith-based school that has a standing policy, adding “One of our policies is very clear about child abuse, child molestation, and so forth. We don’t call for those things, so are such over the years, we’ve been very constant, if you talk to our students, you’re going to know that it means, every time any teacher makes a move on you, please go to our offices and let us know and we will take appropriate action.”
He narrates that last week while in Marshall, the Vice Principle called and informed him that parents of one of the students were on campus with a complaint.
“And these complaints have to do with messages that were found in [their] daughter’s phone about her and one of our new teachers, who has stayed in the school for five months, and this message has to do with relationship.”
According to him after he heard the information, he immediately returned on campus and queried the instructor linked to the sexual allegation, whether it’s true that there is a relationship between him and a female student.
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Bishop Jones explains that the teacher in question admitted that they were lovers, so he put the instructor, the school Principal and Vice Principal and the uncle of the student in his car and drove them to Zone 10 Police Station where a formal written complaint was made and the said instructor turned over to the police.
“In my presence, the police charged him and put him in jail in the presence of the girl’s parents. I was there when the girl and her mother arrived and the police took statement from them. And the police told me I was free to go; the school was not directly responsible for what happened.”
Bishop Jones reiterates that at no time any of his students have been raped on campus since the institution was founded, adding that it was shocking to have heard such misleading and false information broadcast by some media outlets about his institution without verifying the facts.
He maintains that the incident took place after school hours, not on campus and it was only brought to his knowledge by the mother of the child and so he acted in less than two hours, saying “We took action and turned the teacher over to the police.”
He reveals that the school has handbooks with regulations and laws, and if any teacher violates the handbook, “we sack the teacher from the school.” Editing by Jonathan Browne
