Residents of Glen Road, Tobago: Move prison from here

Glen Road residents are threatening legal action if the Government does not revoke its decision to establish the Tobago Correctional Facility in their area.

They have also rejected Chief Secretary Ancil Dennis’s apology to residents for the “lack of consultation” on the issue.

Dennis responded to the issue at Wednesday’s post-executive council media conference.

During a tour of the correctional facility on November 6, Prisons Commissioner Dennis Pulchan revealed it will house inmates from the existing Scarborough prison, while the latter is to be used as a quarantine facility.

On that occasion, Pulchan said the facility, on Montessori Drive, Gled Roadm Scarborough, will not house hardened criminals but inmates who have committed “low-level crimes.” He also claimed residents had responded positively to the move.

But speaking at a protest outside the facility on Friday, residents said they intend to explore their legal options.

“We will have to find a way, even if we have to put money up together to do something, find out from a lawyer what our next steps are,” resident Mark Renwick told reporters.

He added, “We just have not discussed it fully yet but we are looking at that. How much it will cost.”

Renwick, whose business place is a short distance from the prison, revealed he had spoken to the area’s THA representative Marslyn Melville-Jack about the prison.

He claimed Melville-Jack said she did not know anything about it.

Renwick said Melville-Jack also told him the Chief Secretary would not have known about the prison because it is not under his purview.

“That makes me wonder what the Chief Secretary is apologising for because he does not know what is going on. So who is he apologising to?”

Saying he was “sad, upset and worried” about the situation, Renwick said residents are being abused.

“They take us for a nine-days people. We not going to be a nine-days for this one. We not going to sit down and allow them to do what they want and bully and abuse us. We refuse to be abused and that is what he is doing to us right now, abusing us.”

He urged National Security Minister Stuart Young to remove the prison.

“This is where I bring my children to ride their bikes, and I can’t do that again.

“They want me to change my life for covid (19), change my life for this. It does not make sense. I can’t afford to do that. So I want them to just remove this from my area.”

Retired prisons officer Anthony Phillips described as “disrespectful” the establishment of a prison in the area.

“You have to select a (specific) place for a prison, not on people’s back door or their back step. This is not good,” he said. “This is highly disrespectful to us here and we are not having this.”

Phillips, who also lives in the area, said if a prisoner escapes they would more than likely end up in somebody’s home through a door or window.

On Dennis’s apology, he said: “The damage is already done. What is he going to apologise about now? You have not come to the community centre and keep a meeting to find out how the residents feel about this.”

Phillips said this was because Tobagonians do not “lobby or protest” against anything.

“But this one, we have to do something about this, because it is highly disrespectful.”