Poverty is hell!
So said Shadow in his calypso some years ago.
But it is also a crime, as the saying goes.
This is what a 32-year-old Sangre Grande mother of five learned
last Tuesday night when police raided her home at Jairasingh Village,
Coal Mine and rescued her five children -- four girls and an infant
boy -- from a maggot-infested house and arrested her.
The girls whose ages range between six, 10, 11 and 13 were eating
food infested with worms from a stink kitchen, which looked like
an unclean pigpen.
Police officers, WPC Beverly Paul and Constables Allan Khan and
Chris Edwards were shocked by the insanitary condition of the
three bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen.
The children slept on a piece of foam in two bedrooms which looked
like a dump.
They say that it was only a matter of time before the children
would have been stricken by some infectious disease.
Pots with food were covered with worms in the kitchen and flies
were in the utensils and drinking water.
The children appeared under-nourished and were taken to the Sangre
Grande Hospital for medical attention.
Police investigations reveal that the mother, Nadia Mendoza, had
given birth to the five children for three different fathers,
who had abandoned her and their children.
She told police officers she was having financial problems to
upkeep the children since she was self-employed and had little
or no assistance from the children’s fathers.
Her last child, a boy, is just over a year old.
Police arrested two of the fathers and charged them with neglect
and exposing the children to danger, while a warrant was issued
for a third father.
The mother was slapped with five counts of neglect and exposing
children to danger. Mendoza, along with Rickson Carrington, 34,
of Trincity (who has three children with her) and Glen Pierre,
44, of Sangre Grande appeared before Magistrate Judy Gordon in
the Sangre Grande Magistrates’ Court on Thursday to answer
the charges.
They pleaded not guilty and were each allowed bail in the sum
of $20,000. Their cases were adjourned to May 12.
Police are searching for a third father.
The children have been placed at a Home for Children in Sangre
Grande.
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Acting
Corporal BEVERLY
PAUL (right) escorts
NADIA MENDOZA
to court.
PC
CHRIS EDWARDS
taking GLEN PIERRE
to court.
PC
ALLAN KHAN (left) on his
way to court with RICKSON
CARRINGTON.
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