– slams cops over sloth in prosecuting her attacker
“Cut and run. Don’t stick,” that is the advice 52-year-old Bernadette Jackson, who was attacked by her reputed husband last month, said she would give to young women in abusive relationships.
Jackson left her abusive husband in late January; she returned home last month to collect her clothing and was lured into her ‘C’ Field Sophia house by her reputed husband and forced to fight for her life for more than two hours. After terrorizing her, 65-year-old Clinton Barker allegedly set fire to the woman’s house then stabbed himself several times to the chest and stomach. He was admitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) where he spent several days in critical condition.
Barker, a senior police source said on April 28, was discharged from the medical institution and was released from police custody on cash bail. The source has indicated that the man would be charged shortly. However, charges have not yet been laid against the man and a sombre Jackson stated that she fears for her life even now.
“I can’t walk around town in peace,” Jackson said yesterday. “I have to keep spinning to see if this man behind me… I am homeless, barely making a living for myself and I don’t know what to do to repair my life.”
The woman stressed that she is not satisfied with how police are treating the matter. Police, according to Jackson, recently told her that the file has been sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice on what charges should be instituted against Barker.
“They released him on $20,000 cash bail,” Jackson alleged. “Imagine look at what they release that man on… he try to kill me, he made me run from my house and then he burn it down and up to now he can’t get charge.”
A determined expression on her face, Jackson said she is not willing to forget the matter. Justice is what she wants and she said she will not be able to move on with her life until she gets it.
For 11 years she lived with Barker, endured verbal abuse, fought to minimize the physical abuse dealt to her and worked more than he did to provide for them. Hope, Jackson said, was something she held on to over the years thinking that her reputed husband would change.
Enough
Change never came in her relationship and after more than a decade of trying Jackson decided that “enough was enough”. She was tired of a continuously rowdy life, tired of defending herself, and sick of seeing strange people in her home.
“The attitude,” Jackson said. “I couldn’t take it anymore… he was always drinking and bringing all sorts of strange people into our home.”
On January 9, Jackson recalled, she decided to flee from her home to escape from the hell that was her life. She stayed with relatives in West Demerara and Barker, she explained, contacted her and continuously asked whether she would return home.
“I told him yes but I wouldn’t go,” Jackson said. “He started to accuse me of staying with a man and started making all kind of nasty accusations.”
On April 7, the day she almost lost her life, Jackson, said she returned to the ‘C’ Field Sophia home which Food For the Poor Incor-porated had aided her in building. Jackson explained that she and her sister-in-law went to the house so that she could collect her clothes.
Barker, she said, was upset and demanded to know why she was “always bringing along police or a tail” with her whenever she went to the house to get anything. Jackson said the man invited her and her sister-in-law to enter the house. Jackson went up the stairs and entered the house and Barker quickly locked her sister-in-law out.
“I went into the bedroom and start packing my clothes,” the woman related. “I never realize that he lock her [Jackson’s sister-in-law] out. All I hear is “You eyes pass me; you is a dead woman tonight.” then I turn around and barely block the bread knife he was holding from sinking into my neck.”
The woman said she was locked in the house for just over two hours (6.40 pm to 8.45 pm) with Barker and fought with all she had to save her life. During their struggle, Jackson said, she was cut several times, stabbed once and had her head shoved against a lit one burner stove.
Jackson said she managed to flee from the man and he subsequently set fire to her home and tried to commit suicide. She was treated at GPH and released that night.
Rough Talk
Physical scars are not the only things Jackson has left from her relationship. She has endless emotional scars which she blames on “rough talk”.
She described her reputed husband as jealous, possessive and extremely insecure. Barker, she said, hated to see her look good and would insult her and accuse her of being unfaithful if she did.
“I didn’t get any space,” Jackson said. “If I went to the shop and stayed too long he told me I was looking for man. People might say its just a little rough talk but that rough talk caused me pain and it still hurts.”
Barker, the woman also alleged, still contacts her via telephone occasionally to make threats. Jackson said the man has threatened repeatedly to kill her and says he will not rest until she is dead.
“He called me Sunday night and said, ‘I want lil wining… This is your husband Barker’,” Jackson said.
She knows that it is in her power not to let such crude statements affect her self confidence and hurt her but it is hard to find the strength to do that, Jackson said.
Although hurt in many ways, Jackson spoke with courage, and stressed that she was not going to be talked into dropping the matter because if she didn’t get justice now she would never get it.
“The signs are all there,” the woman said. “I speak from experience and is only now I realize that there is nothing I could have done to change him… all I can tell to the young females I see going through the same thing is that you have to know when to leave. It’s always your choice.”
