Authorities failed to act as victim cried for help

Oct 05, 2010 News

… QC student’s headless body

Yesterday as news of the death of 16-year-old Neesa Gopaul spread, her colleagues and a teacher of Queen’s College were furious, saying that had the authorities done more she would have been alive.
Some of the student’s classmates asked that the school fly the flag at half-mast to show their sympathy. However, this newspaper was told that the head teacher of the school was totally against the initiative since she ‘wanted nothing to do with the incident’.
The students mounted a black flag at the gate anyhow.
A source close to the school told this publication that the school’s administration has since sought to distance its self from Gopaul’s incident. It is claiming that the incident has “disgraced the Queen’s College good name.”
According to close associates of the teen, the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security was well aware of Neesa’s plight. Many expressed the view that the Education system could have done more but the school was more worried about its ‘good name’.
“The teachers at the school knew what Neesa was dealing with. Her classmates tried to get help for her but their hands were tied. The school could have done more.”
This newspaper was told that at one point several photographs of Neesa’s body bearing bruises were handed over to the Ministry of Human Services but nothing ever came of the matter.
“If the social workers had done their own investigations and did more digging to get to the bottom of the issue they could have saved that child…she should have been removed from that house.”
After reports that Neesa had turned to drugs started to surface, the teen made a counter allegation that it was her mother who was using the drugs. Kaieteur News was told that a probation officer, Robert Singh escorted Neesa and her mother to Eureka Labs where they were both subjected to drug tests.
The teen’s grandfather, Mohamed Kayum confirmed this, stating that Neesa’s test came back 80 percent positive for Ecstasy while her mother’s test came back negative.
“Neesa kept telling us that her mother gave the probation officer money and she did not do the test.”
“Meh granddaughter try telling people so much things but nobody listened to her; nobody believed her.”
When contacted, yesterday, Head of Child Protection Agency, Ms. Ann Greene, said that she was not in a position to comment on the issue since she would have to be briefed by her officers. Ms Greene, when asked to confirm that the Ministry was aware of Neesa’s plight, said that she will reserve her comments until after being briefed.
However, close associates of Neesa said that Ms. Greene was involved in Neesa’s matter.

Aunt recollects Neesa last
month alive
Hours after confirming that her niece whom she had seen alive just a week ago was found in a suitcase, Sally Redman was forced to return to Guyana. Sally described Neesa’s plight as a horror story that she even could not have survived.
Sally said that a month after her brother-in-law died, her sister was a different person. According to the woman, given the little knowledge that she had gained while working in a rehabilitation centre in Barbados she suspected that her sister was on drugs.
“My mother and father would call me and ask me to talk to Naree because she was always not herself, sleepy and tired and when she talks she slurs.”
According to Sally, for months she tried contacting her sister on their landline phone but she never got through. She said that she later learnt that her sister’s lover had disconnected the phone.
“Sometimes I would call a cell number and someone would just answer the phone and listen and then cut the phone off.” Sally said that it was only a month ago that she received a call from her sister literally begging her to come home.
“She called me and said she wanted me to come home but she said Sal, I don’t want you to come for a few days. That will defeat the whole purpose.” Sally said that after hearing her sister’s plea for help she decided to return to Guyana.
“When I arrived, my sister came at the airport for me when I saw my sister she looked wasted; it was not the person I once new. The first thing I asked her was, ‘Are you on drugs’?”
The woman recalled that her sister merely smiled and answered in the negative. Once home, Sally said that her sister and her niece began relating some horror stories.
“The life my sister and Neesa started to live was nothing easy. Their nights were spent at creeks on the Soesdyke Highway…Nessa told me they would camp out in the nights at creeks and come home in the mornings for coffee and spend the entire day sleeping.”
According to Sally, Neesa related that once during a fight between her mother and her mother’s lover she almost severed her left thumb with a knife as she ran to her mother’s rescue.
“Neesa said when she got the cut her mother was about to take her to the Leonora Hospital but Barry (her stepfather) stopped her saying that if you go to the hospital, the police and Human Services will take her away since they already have numerous reports.”
Sally explained that her niece was made to stay at home and was injected with some sort of anesthetic to receive sutures to the wound.
“My niece said as Barry Jarvis was injecting her, the pain was too much and she kept insisting that she wanted to go to the hospital. She told me that Barry then took out a cigarette, took out some of the tobacco and filled it with a crystalline substance and told her to smoke it so he can continue to stitch her hand.”
According to Sally, shortly after, Barry gave up his attempts to sew Neesa’s hand. Kaieteur News was told that the teen’s crisis continued. She was drugged on numerous occasions by her mother’s lover and forced into sex.
According to the teen’s aunt, on numerous occasions the teen would be lured out of the house by her mother’s lover to a hotel after being told stories that her mother was planning to kill her for her inheritance.
“My niece was very confused. Barry would tell her that her mother was a drug addict since she was always asleep and locked in her room…Barry would tell Neesa that her mother wanted to kill her so she would confide in Barry who would always use that to his advantage.”
The woman said that her niece also told her that her mother’s lover knew almost every creek on the Soesdyke Highway. “She told me of instances where they would sneak into a resort and were shot at for entering after hours.”
The woman said that throughout this entire scenario her five-year-old niece was locked in the car.
Persons who knew Barry Small or Jarvis Small, as he is also called, said that he reared pit bulls and had access to all sorts of drugs which he would normally use on his animals.
The woman lamented over the fact that she tried her best to save both her sister and her niece from a destructive life. Sally also confirmed that a report was made to the police about Neesa being sexually molested by her mother’s lover.
However, the teen was forced to recant her statement to the police after she had presented a sworn statement which was signed by a Justice of Peace. This information, Sally said, was made available to the probation officers who were dealing with the matter.
The woman said that she even convinced her sister to put her lover out of the house in a effort to give her children a better life.
However, the woman expressed the fact that all her efforts were in vain as immediately after she left Guyana her sister moved her lover back into the house. Sally said that she left Guyana on September 18 and the Friday after she left she was told that her niece was missing.
“I spoke to Naree on the September 24 and she told me Neesa left the house so I told her to make a report at the station.”
That report was made at the Leonora Police Station on the following day.
Sally recalled that the same day she was told that her niece was missing she had a lengthy conversation with her sister who expressed interest of having another relative adopt her younger daughter.
“I kept asking Naree so what you will do when Neesa return and all she kept saying was when Neesa come back she will deal with that…but she kept saying she is back with Barry and she wants her little daughter to have a better life.”
The woman said that shortly after she returned to Barbados she received information that police had stormed a hotel in Parika and found Barry and her sister. “I asked her why would the police storm the room she said somebody called the police and told them that gunmen were in the hotel but it was only them in the hotel.”
Sally said that on Sunday morning last she was greeted with the news that her niece’s body was found floating in a creek.