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Mother protests daughter, 15, being kept in police lockups
The teen’s distraught mother, Bridgette Moore
Frustrated and worried sick, a 48-year-old mother of nine took to the streets yesterday to protest against her 15-year-old daughter being detained at the Whim Police Station lockups on the Corentyne.
As Bridgette Moore braved the scorching sun and lobbied the Chancellor’s Office at the Court of Appeal, Kingston, she recorded her dissatisfaction with the way the teen is being passed through the system as a result of decisions taken by Magistrate Marissa Mittelholzer at the Albion Court.
The young girl has been remanded in custody since her first court appearance on July 12 on an assault charge. The majority of the time, Moore says, the teen has been languishing in the Whim Police Station lockups.
According to reports, the 15-year-old landed the assault charge after attempting to defend her pregnant sister, who came under attack by an older woman. The matter was forwarded to the Rose Hall Police Station and the teenager was subsequently hauled before the courts.
At her very first court hearing on July 12, Magistrate Mittelholzer remanded her in custody. Since then, the child has been pushed around between the Whim Police Station lockups and the Juvenile Holding Centre in Dennis Street, Sophia, Greater Georgetown.
Policy dictates that youths older than 10 but younger than 17, who come in conflict with the law, are not supposed to be detained in the same environment with adult offenders.
The Juvenile Holding Centre, in effect, is the facility where youths should be detained. The mother is claiming that her daughter is being kept in the lockups with other prisoners.
The family of the teenager wants the relevant authorities to look into their situation with some urgency, especially since the teenager had been returned to the station lockups earlier this week.
Speaking to Kaieteur News, the woman said she had told the Magistrate that she is employed in Georgetown and usually returns to their Rose Hall residence to take care of her teenage children on weekends.
She said her daughter was kept there for two weeks in the lockups at the Whim Police Station but, the child was brought to the holding centre in Georgetown after some opposition. On Monday, there was another hearing before the said Magistrate and the child was again remanded, her mother explained.
The Magistrate had on this last occasion ordered the child held in a city orphanage until October 9, her next court date. When the child was taken to the home, however, she was refused.
The teenage girl was taken back to the Whim station lockups, much to her mother’s dismay. Frustrated and fed-up, the woman told Kaieteur News “I need to get justice. I need the Magistrate and the Welfare to release my daughter,” she said.
What the girl’s mother finds disturbing is that the other parties charged in relation to the altercation have been released on bail as the matters are being tried. “I got a small house, yes, but all nine of my children raise right there,” Moore lamented.
The mother says she feels discriminated against because she occupies a one-bedroom house. “All my children grow up in the same house. My biggest son is thirty and the youngest is thirteen. I raise all my children good,” she said.
The woman is of the opinion that the Welfare Officer handling the case is being biased and failed to properly investigate into the child’s family situation.
With the new school term fast approaching, Moore is particularly concerned for her child’s education. She wants her daughter to be released into her custody.
She is reluctant for her daughter to be held by the State and is instead begging for government’s intervention to get her child back.
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