A Christ Church mother is claiming that her son, who is an inmate at Her Majesty’s Prison Dodds, has been badly beaten by prison wardens.
Elfreda Lily Polin said her 26-year-old son Jamar, who is serving time for theft, contacted her yesterday by telephone complaining that he had been beaten by two prison officers on Monday because he did not carry out an order.
Jamar
The Sargeants Village resident told Barbados TODAY another inmate had also called her home on Monday evening shortly after the alleged incident took place with virtually the same report.
“[The inmate] called to say that prison officers beat up my son real bad. And then he [Jamar] call back yesterday and say that them want to charge he [and] ask me to go to a lawyer.
Elfreda Lily Polin is anxious for word on her son.
“I get real offset and I call up there and I say, ‘I want to speak to the Superintendent [John Nurse]’, but them give me another name and he say he going to call back, but never call back.
“I don’t know what going on. Nobody ain’t calling me,” the distressed woman said.
Since then, Polin said she has attempted to contact authorities at the St Philip correctional facility, but her efforts have so far been futile.
Polin, a well-known newspaper vendor who has two other sons who were recently released from prison, said she had not been able to sleep well for the past few nights and desperately wanted to know what was going on with her son.
Based on the reports she has received, the mother charged that even though her son, “might be up there for a punishment, you can’t treat people like no dogs”.
“My son do he things; he admit it. He is still my son at the end of the day,” she told Barbados TODAY, “A bad son is better than none at all.”
“They should not treat people children like animals and I hear it from more than one person,” she indicated, describing herself as an ailing woman who was simply trying her best to raise her children.
When Barbados TODAY contacted the office of Superintendent of Prisons John Nurse this afternoon, we were told he was in a meeting. Repeated attempts to reach him since then have been unsuccessful and prison officials said he was the only one authorized to respond to such reports.
Late this evening we also sent a text message to Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite, who has been wrapped up with debate on the 2015/2016 Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure. He responded saying he was unaware of the report.