Latest update March 29th, 2025 5:38 AM
‘Eyewitness’ says he found Harding unconscious in cell after hearing screams of ‘murder’
A former prisoner is claiming that he heard Colwyn Harding repeatedly screaming ‘murder’ after police forced him into a cell at the Timehri Police Station, and says he later found the alleged sex assault victim bleeding and unconscious in the same cell.
The man, who identified himself as Stephan Joseph Phillips, called ‘Muslim’, also claim that Harding later disclosed that he had been sexually assaulted by a policeman at the station.
‘Eyewitness’ Stephan Joseph Phillips
Phillips came forward to speak to reporters yesterday and also to give a statement to Attorney-at-Law Nigel Hughes.
Asked if he was aware of the alleged eyewitness, Police Commissioner Leroy Brumell told Kaieteur News last night that he was informed that Hughes “had a statement from someone and that they (investigators) were checking it out.”
Phillips told Kaieteur News that he, along with his 17-year-old son, was detained at the Timehri Police Station from November 14 to November 15 on a sex assault allegation at the same time that Harding was brought to the same station. According to the former inmate, he had known Harding previously by the nickname ‘Obama’, while Harding knew him (Phillips) as ‘Muslim’.
Phillips alleged that on the day that Harding arrived at the station, he observed police ranks “tugging” at Harding to go into the lockups. “I ask he what happen and he say that the police come up and arrest he, along with some other suspect, at Timehri for some break and enter.”
He recounted that they were placed in separate cells.
“They place him in Cell Two, and I hear he hollering for ‘murder’, ‘murder.’ When they left I open the lockups (cell) where I was, and I go and open his lockups and I find he lying down and bleeding from his head, his foot and other parts of his body. He was unconscious.”
Phillips said that he was the ‘prison orderly’ and therefore was allowed to move from one unlocked cell to the next.
“Two days after, they come in about five o’clock in the morning and take him to court.”
Phillips, who alleged that his son was also beaten by the police, said that he was eventually released without charges.
According to Philips, he had decided to come forward with his story because Harding had mentioned his name “on the news”.
“So after I heard that, I decide to come forward. I decide to come forward because I know about the incident. I was the one who advised him (Harding) to go to the media. I came forward this morning. I come to the hospital, then I went to the lawyer’s (Hughes’) office.”
Phillips also alleged that some police ranks have approached him and asked him not to give a statement.
“All they are asking me is that Singh in problem and they don’t want me to go against him. I decided to come forward without them knowing because I know the pain he (Harding) went through. “
Officials from the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) are conducting the investigation. Yesterday, an OPR investigator visited Harding at the Georgetown Public Hospital. He spent several hours questioning Harding in the presence of attorney Nigel Hughes.
Brumell had told journalists on Thursday that the constable that Harding had accused has been placed under close arrest. He said that “about six to eight” other ranks, including an assistant superintendent, have been transferred from the Timehri Police Station to Georgetown.
The Commissioner stressed that the investigation was still incomplete and that the accused ranks had denied forcing a baton up Harding’s rectum. Harding, he said, had also never indicated to police that this was done to him.
Brumell had said that investigators were also to have visited the Georgetown Prisons, where Harding was remanded.
A Prison official had told Kaieteur News that Harding never indicated that he had sustained any injuries, when he was brought to the penitentiary. The official also expressed doubt that the inmate was injured while he was incarcerated there.
The official explained that prisoners being placed in the Camp Street facility are questioned as to whether they have any injuries. If the injury is not a serious one, the inmate is treated at the prison infirmary. In cases where the injury is severe, the prisoner is transferred to hospital, the official said.
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