‘He made me smile’

SINCE police shot her son dead on Thursday, Teresa Barker, the mother of Nicolas Barker, had been beside herself with grief. She lamented that she could not even get a grandson from the 23-year-old because of his death.

However, last Saturday, she got a surprise visit from an old flame of Nicholas’s which turned the pain of losing a son into the joy of gaining a grandson.

The family is now trying to get a DNA test done to confirm whether a five-year-old boy is actually Nicolas Barker’s son.

“Although he is not in this world any more, he still put a smile on my face,” said Barker about her son at the Forensic Science Centre in St James yesterday. “He must have gotten fed up of hearing me cry, and sent this bundle of joy to make me smile,”

Barker told Newsday she was visited by an old girlfriend of Nicolas’s who told her that the two had a son together. “I was quarrelling with the mother and asking why they didn’t tell me something before, but she told me Nicolas wanted to make sure the child was his, and wanted to have a DNA test done. I told her I would work on it as best as I could,” Barker told Newsday.

She added that, although they do not have a confirmation from a DNA test as yet, her son and the five-year-old boy look exactly alike.

“If you look at my son and you look at him, you would not be able to tell the difference.”

Nicholas Barker was one of the five people who were shot dead by police last Thursday in Trou Macaque, Laventille. Controversy still surrounds the incident, as police claim they were shot at by the group while on a routine patrol. Residents claim the men surrendered to police and were executed.

Barker yesterday maintained that her son was not involved in any criminal activity.

“He was my navel string,” Barker, the mother of six, said, “He was the biggest part of me, because he was my first child. His father walked out on me when he was in pre-school, and it was his stepfather and I who made sure he had everything. I did all kinds of work – security work, funeral homes, cleaning – just to make sure he and the rest of my children had everything they needed.

“I told all of them they had to be better than me. I did not want any of them cleaning toilets to make ends meet like I did.”

An autopsy on Nicolas’s body confirmed he died from multiple gunshot wounds.