The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

POLICE Commissioner Clayton Fernander said he will search for the investigation files concerning complaints women in The Bahamas made about Peter Nygard to see why charges were never brought against the former fashion mogul.

Charges and convictions against Nygard abroad have spotlighted the lack of action in this country where Nygard lived for years. 

 The Tribune reported in 2019 that local police were investigating six allegations of rape against the 82-year-old.

 The women alleged that Nygard sexually assaulted and raped them when they were younger than 16 at his Lyford Cay mansion.

 Commissioner Fernander told The Tribune he never saw a file of complaints against Nygard, noting he was sent on vacation leave in 2019.

 In 2019, Mr Fernander, then an assistant commissioner, was forced to take vacation leave.

 “I would have to locate the files to see what decision was made at that time, why the matter did not make the courts,” he told The Tribune.

 “I’ll have to try to find out from CID if they have any files with any sex matters coming from Nygard.”

 In 2020, former Commissioner of Police Paul Rolle said when police visited Nygard’s home in 2019, he had already left the country. He suggested that the probe went nowhere because Nygard refused to return and cooperate with the investigation.

 Nygard was convicted of sexual assault in Toronto, Canada, this month in the first of several criminal trials he will face over how he treated women in multiple countries across several decades.

 He was found guilty of four counts of sexual assault.