Court appeal

An appeal for assistance from the court is to be sought this week, following another attempted suicide by a female ward at the Government Industrial School (GIS) and a claim by the child’s guardian that there is a wider plot by more of the juveniles to end their lives.

A distraught Marilyn Grant reported on Monday evening that just before her granddaughter tried to take her own life on Saturday by ingesting a mixture of substances while in the care of the State, she told her she and other wards at the Barrows, St Lucy facility had planned to commit suicide.

Against that backgound, advocacy group Operation Safe Space (OSS) told Barbados TODAY that it will be filing an urgent application in the High Court between Tuesday and Wednesday asking that the girl be moved.

“We are asking that the child be rehoused at a facility that is more suitable to deal with her particular presentation and needs and that she be provided educational support in line with her age and stage,” Co-Director of OSS Dr Marsha Hinds disclosed.

A tearful Grant is, meantime, afraid that her granddaughter’s next attempt at suicide could be successful.

She recalled that when she spoke with her on Saturday, via a video call that was overseen by a GIS staff member, the girl had tears in her eyes and looked dazed as she struggled to speak.

“It was afterward I read a message from her on Whatsapp telling me ‘help the girls to get out’. She didn’t ask about herself because she doesn’t want to live anymore in her existing conditions, and more particularly if she is sent to the adult prison following her pending court case on an assault charge,” the guardian told Barbados TODAY.

“And today [Monday], when I eventually was allowed to speak with her and we communicated in code, she again begged to be removed from the system before her court appearance next week, failing which she intends to make the next in a series of attempts, successful,” added Grant, who said she was informed on Saturday by someone at GIS that her granddaughter was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) after ingesting a mixture of three different substances. 

“Time is running out to save my granddaughter’s life. When my ‘daughter’ plans something she will carry it out. After speaking with her today [Monday], she said she was okay, only because a staff member was nearby. But she whispered to me before coming off the phone, ‘don’t forget to do the thing’. This, in our code, was yet another cry to get help for her and the girls before next week. Those girls are planning another suicide plot,” the guardian warned.

She said her granddaughter had ingested substances on more than four occasions and has been in and out of the Psychiatric Hospital nearly half a dozen times.

“My granddaughter’s life is in danger. If she doesn’t get help to get out of that place and is kept away from the adult prison she will die next time,” Grant lamented.

“I sent a whole girl to them and now I have a vegetable. That place [GIS] is not a nice place. On July 2, when we spoke on the phone her message to me was ‘gran, I’m fed up. I want to come home’.”Earlier, reports stated that the GIS ward had committed suicide but in response, Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams denied the rumour.

“There is absolutely no truth to that,” he told Barbados TODAY.

Hinds explained that when the application goes to court, the juvenile will be covered under the constitutional motion challenging the validity of the archaic wandering charge.

“So, if that charge falls away, it is the question of ‘how do you cater to this child’s needs without criminalising her?’,” she said.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb