Mother turns to drugs after son’s death

Mourning mother Yvonne Maureen Callender was inconsolable when she appeared in court on a cannabis charge.

The 58-year-old resident of Block 1C Farm Road, Deacons Farm, St Michael wasted no time in telling Magistrate Douglas Frederick that she was guilty of having 2.2 grammes of the illegal drugs in her possession earlier today.

Sergeant Edwin Pinder told the court that lawmen found the vegetable matter when they executed a search at her residence in relation to another criminal matter. She admitted then that “this is mine”.

With tears in her eyes and catching her breath every few words, Callender apologised for committing the act. However, it was her explanation that had the court riveted to her every word, muffled though her voice was.

“I am not denying that it was mine. My son was killed in May . . . and I got this vibration going through my body. The doctor said [it] is the nerves [so] yes, I was smoking it. I used to smoke it years ago but I had stop . . . but it is only because my son got killed in May that I started again,” she said.

However, after assuring the magistrate that “it is nothing that I plan to continue”, Callender was reprimanded and discharged on the charge.