The system failed Neesa Lalita Gopaul angry relatives complained yesterday, stating that if the police and the welfare service had been functioning the way they should, the 16-year-old would have been alive today.
Several months ago Neesa Lalita Gopaul and her mother had made reports of assault and abuse to police at Leonora but about a month before her death the teen returned to the station claiming that the allegations she made were false, Commander of Police ‘D’ Divison Balram Persaud said.
These allegations, the Assistant Commissioner said, were made against the mother’s lover by both females at the Leonora Police Station. The man was later charged with assaulting the mother and physically abusing Gopaul, Persaud said.
However, about four weeks ago Gopaul and her mother showed up at the station and the child told investigators that the statement she had given to police was false. At the time, Gopaul reportedly said, she was angry with her mother’s boyfriend and just said those things.
After the man was charged and the situation explained to the magistrate, Persaud said, he was subsequently remanded and later, when his attorney approached the High Court, he was granted bail.
Police, he said, were willing to investigate the matter but could do nothing after Gopaul withdrew her statement.
Gopaul’s mother, her lover and his legally wedded wife remained in police custody up to late last evening. The trio was arrested hours after the headless, deteriorating body of Gopaul was discovered in a suitcase anchored in the creek at the closed resort Emerald Tower in Madewini, Linden/ Soesdyke Highway.
Her maternal grandparents told this newspaper that Gopaul went missing since September 24, and this was reported to police by her mother three days later. During the days that his granddaughter was missing, Anna Catherina resident Kayoum said, his daughter (Gopaul’s mother) “was very calm”. He believes that the child was killed because “she knew too much”.
Despite the commander’s comments about the teen withdrawing her statement about the physical abuse she reportedly suffered Kayoum insists that his granddaughter was a minor and the police should have done more.
Other relatives have since said that officials at the Ministry of Human Services were aware of the abuse being suffered by the teen did not do enough for her. Earlier this year, relatives said, Gopaul had been handed over to her grandparents by welfare officers. The fact that the child’s mother was able to take her from the grandparents, they said, was an indication that the relevant authorities at the ministry were not functioning as they should have been.
“If they had been checking on this child and her state and what was going on with her situation then they would have known the mother took her back from the grandparents and they could have taken necessary action,” the upset relatives said.
This newspaper has since learnt that the Ministry of Human Services is currently investigating the case. The ministry is yet to issue a statement on the matter.
A restraining order was also secured by relatives barring the mother’s boyfriend from being anywhere near Gopaul, but this too was ineffective.
‘Living hell’
Gopaul’s father, Moonsamy Gopaul died on September 20 last year. His brother, Poonsammy Gopaul said he believed that since then, his daughter Neesa’s life was a “living hell”.
During the last decade or so, Poonsammy told Stabroek News, his brother converted to Islam. The man became a priest in that religion to which his wife originally belonged.
Gopaul and her father, Poonsammy related, were very close and the child would have witnessed many “misunderstandings” between her parents.
“He [the late Moonsammy] met his wife [Gopaul’s mother] more than 17 years ago…he was quite a few years older than her but he provided for her well and made sure that she never lacked anything,” Poonsammy said.
During the last three to four years, the man reported, his brother had started complaining to relatives about the woman’s behaviour. Gopaul’s mother, he alleged, was into the “fast life” and often when her husband was on business trips she would take large amounts of money out of their bank account to party and travel.
“It was her habit,” he alleged, “to disappear with money for two to three weeks at a time and when she was done partying she would come back home. Over the last couple of year or so she left my brother several times and even took him to court in an effort to claim a share in his property and other assets.”
Poonsammy believes that his brother stayed with the woman because he genuinely cared about her and also realized the sort of “legal complications” a separation would cause. These problems, the man believes, is what prompted Moonsammy to will his estate to Gopaul and her younger sister.
Several weeks after his brother died, Poonsammy added, supporting what the woman’s parents had told Stabroek News earlier, his widow allowed her lover to move in with her and the two children at the house in Leonora.
“This relationship between she and this man,” Poonsammy alleged, “was going on long before then… so when my brother died she didn’t waste anytime she just let this man move in with her.”
It was at this point, the man believes, that “hell started” for his niece. One afternoon, Poonsammy recalled, Gopaul had called him and told him that she couldn’t bear to live in that house anymore (the Leonora house where she had lived all her life with her parents).
Gopaul, he said, never directly told him what was being done to her but later she made certain admissions to other relatives. After his brother’s death last September, the man said, Gopaul’s mother had changed all their numbers, ceased contact with their side of the family and forbade the teen to have any contact with them.
The teen later told her father’s sister, Poonsammy said, that she was being drugged and abused by her mother’s boyfriend. Her grandfather Kayoum told this newspaper on Sunday that his daughter was also being drugged.
Property
Kayoum had said that his granddaughter stole his mobile phone, and the week, during which she went missing, the young woman made several calls and sent several text messages to another mobile number, a situation which he found “confusing”.
The messages warned that someone should be cautious as the police were attempting to prove him/her dangerous while another which was sent on September 21, three days before the young woman went missing, said, “I fed up trying to save u, I goin to give a statement dis afternoon about ur morphine ..and those calls you made last nite…”
Another message which was sent earlier that day read, “If you got drugs in da house u need 2 get rid of it, n deres a bottle of morphine here with your fingerprints if you want it lemme kno and stop trying to scare the…. out of us”. The police at Leonora were shown the messages yesterday, the teen’s grandfather reported.
Poonsammy, referring to these text messages, said that his niece was clearly terrified and had finally decided to speak out about the hell she was being forced to live in. He said he believed the girl was killed because of the property which was left to her.
“I think it’s control of this property they wanted and with her out of the way then it would have been easy to access the assets even with the younger daughter there,” Poonsammy alleged.
Gopaul, the man also said, was also taken out of school after her father’s death. He believes that this was done so the child would not be able to tell anyone about what was happening to her.
“They knew that if they sent her to school then the possibility remained that she would eventually confide in somebody there,” the man said.
Meanwhile, other relatives who said they were unaware of what was happening to Gopaul, believe that those “in the know” didn’t do enough to protect the child.
“I still can’t see how the police knew about this, the Human Services Ministry knew about this and a number of other relatives knew about this and still a proper effort was not made to get Neesa out of that situation…to get Neesa and her sister to safety…why, why, why? I still can’t understand why nothing was done,” one upset relative, who declined to be named, told this newspaper last evening.
It is still not clear whether Gopaul was murdered at the Emerald Tower location or whether she was killed, fitted in the suitcase and then taken there and anchor to the bottom of the creek.
