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GSU Commander, Supt, Mark Flowers, Charged For Molesting Girl, Remanded To Prison
posted (July 26, 2016)
Tonight, Superintendent Mark Flowers, who was the Commander of the Gang Suppression Unit up until last week, is at the Belize Central Prison on remand. He was charged and arraigned this evening on the offense of unlawful sexual intercourse. This is after a 14 year-old girl reported to police that Flowers had sexual intercourse with her on 2 different occasions in January and March of this year. The girl is now four months pregnant.

We have all the details for you tonight, including an extended sit down interview with the now accused and disgraced cop. He took all questions on the child molestation allegation - plus made some broad allegations against his boss, police minister John Saldivar, and we'll have all that for you. But, we start first with our story of how he finally handed himself in to police after eluding arrest since Monday. Daniel Ortiz has that story:

Daniel Ortiz reporting
Everyone is used to seeing Mark Flowers making the evening news as the police officer trying to interdict criminals, charging persons, and escorting them to and from court.

Here he is back in 2014 as the head of the Gang Suppression Unit defending their hard-charging, and sometime abrasive policing approach…

File: September 14, 2014
Mark Flowers - Former Commander, GSU

"The officers have to do the job and they did find a pound of compressed marijuana. It's not a girl guide's unit, going out there and talking to people, often times. it is difficult to ask somebody. If you know you are doing something illegal, the easiest thing to do, and this is becoming the culture now is to cry foul."

But the tables have turned, and he is the one crying foul against his fellow cops. He had to hand himself in at the Queen Street Police Station for charges today. He is facing a complaint that he forcefully had sex with a 14 year old girl on two occasions, and today was the first time that he and the police met so that the criminal charges could be formally served on him.

Police say he had been evading them for a few days - because an arrest warrant was issued for him. A few hours before the showed up with his attorney, he sat down with us for an interview and said that he is running from no one.

Daniel Ortiz
"There is this suggestion that you are somehow hiding from them."

Mark Flowers - Facing Child Molestation Allegations
"I haven't been in contact with the, I don't even know who is dong the investigation but I haven't been in contact with Russel Blackett."

Mark Flowers - Facing Child Molestation Allegations
"There will be charges laid. No problem, but looking after my own interest, I spoke to Blackett and told him that I was coming down to speak to an attorney. Now they're calling me and referring to me as a fugitive. I am coming back in this country as of Monday last week, I am not going anywhere, I have nowhere to go and I have no reason to go anywhere."

So, what does he think about being on the receiving end of the justice he's sworn to protect?

Daniel Ortiz
"You're usually the one preparing these charges for accused persons after you've done your investigation. What is it like mentally right now to be on the receiving end of that, facing being in prison?"

Mark Flowers - Facing Child Molestation Allegations
"Anguishing, to say the least. Because when it's done with malice it is not like you are doing an investigation to prove or to establish a case. When you know that you don't have the facts and when you know that you want to have the facts and you know that your case is going to go down, it is anguishing."

But he says that a hypothetical good case, and what he is facing are as different as night and day. He's is completely denying all accusations against him, and he says there is a serious element of malicious prosecution involved

Mark Flowers - Facing Child Molestation Allegations
"A malicious prosecution is something, maybe it's a retirement plan. It should be a retirement plan and to take advantage of the situation that is afforded through malice, opinion in the absence of evidence is prejudice. They are being prejudicial and I should at the end of the day be compensated."

This evening, the cops marched him to the Belize CIty Magistrate's Court in full view of the press when he was taken into the holding cell, and later before the Chief Magistrate. He is alleging a police conspiracy set up by his policing colleagues, and he believes that though this complaint is alleged to have been committed in Black Man Eddy in the Cayo District, he was brought to the Belize City court as part of a plan calculated to bring maximum disgrace to his reputation.

He was read 2 counts of unlawful sexual intercourse when he appeared today before the Chief Magistrate, Anne Marie Smith. Flowers was remanded into custody until September 26 when disclosure is to be given. A case management has been set for October 26. The case will be heard in Belmopan Magistrate's Court. He's being represented by attorney Dickie Bradley - who will likely apply for Supreme Court bail this Friday - so that the senior police officer will spend only three nights in jail.

According to the court details, Flowers is accused of having intercourse with the 14 year-old girl at Blackman Eddy - where he has a farm - on January 1, 2016 and on March 15, 2016.

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