DON’T COME BACK HERE

SOME residents of Butler Village in Carapichaima yesterday declared that unless he is fully rehabilitated, following intense counselling, a teenage schoolboy who was released last week after being detained for chopping his mother, will not be welcomed back in the village.

In fact, one resident said he was waiting for the boy to come back so he could give him some licks for what he did.

The boy who is 15 and a student of Presentation College, Chaguanas was ordered released from police custody by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) after investigators said they were unable to get a statement from the boy or his mother, whose right hand was chopped off and she was also chopped to the back and side of her head. She remains warded at hospital. On being released into the care of his father, from the Brasso police station, the boy was taken to a secret location not in Butler Village where he is said to be receiving counselling. The woman, who is a nurse, was brutally chopped at home on April 19. An angry villager said yesterday that in all major religions, a mother is revered and venerated. As such, he said, it is a terrible sin for a child to raise his/her hand against their parent especially their mother.

“That boy has brought shame to our village. We have people in here who are from different religious backgrounds but we all agree that this boy needs to be placed in an institution where he can be counselled and given a complete psychiatric evaluation before he is allowed to return to society. Until then, he is not welcomed in the village,” a resident said.

Another villager added: “I was just waiting for him to return home last week to tell him exactly how I felt and to give him a good beating. But his house remains locked and I have not seen any activity there. I feel he is being hidden. But I will wait patiently until his return,” the angry villager said. Other villagers called on police to send officers from the Service’s Victim and Witness Support Unit to counsel the entire family.

“I can’t understand how that mother could live in the same house with that teen ever again, not knowing if she would ever be able to love her son the way she did before he chopped her. Imagine she has to use the same hand that was chopped off to cook food for him or to hug him,” a villager said. The boy’s grandmother yesterday confirmed he has not returned home since being released from the Brasso Police Station’s juvenile booking centre last week. “Nobody is telling me where he is. He is not home and I want to see him,” she pleaded.

On Friday, Minister of National Security Edmund Dillon said the Chairman of the Children’s Authority Hanif Benjamin made contact with the boy’s father to enquire if the family would accept counselling from the Authority.

The father said no. Police investigators said yesterday the investigation is still open but until they get concrete evidence to base the laying of a criminal charge, their hands are tied. Last week, president of the International Women’s Resource Network Sandrine Rattan indicated she would write to the DPP with respect to the decision to release the teenager.

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