Alicia Prescott, the woman who has been embroiled in a spat with a relative over custody of a one-year-old boy, yesterday afternoon turned up at the Cove and John police station with the results of a DNA test that proves she is the child’s mother.
Prescott had been in hiding since the New Year broke with one-year old Paul Tyrone Sinclair while her aunt, Alice Bryan, made claims on the boy. Police had been investigating the child’s abduction from Bryan’s custody.
Yesterday, Prescott made her way from an interior location where she was “hiding” with the boy and she was questioned extensively by CID officers at Cove and John. After almost four hours of grilling by the police, Prescott was released by the officers with Paul. However, Bryan and other relatives showed up at the police station and made claims regarding the child. “Even though the police verify that this child is mine they still saying that they got to get him and that they will chop me up if they have to with some Taliban crew,” Prescott said. She added that police officers notified her aunt that she (Prescott) should have custody of the child and that the force will now seek legal advice as regards the case. According to Prescott, her family has hired the services of a lawyer to look into the case.
The DNA test was conducted at the GeneTree DNA testing center in the United States. The physical tests were conducted at a medical clinic here and forwarded to the US laboratory for analysis a few weeks ago. The results, seen by this newspaper, found a 99.99% probability that Prescott is the biological mother of the child.
CID ranks at Cove and John yesterday visited a local clinic where the tests were conducted as they investigated the matter.
Bryan, 49, when contacted by this newspaper recently, stated that the child belonged to her and that the family was going all out to reclaim him. The woman noted that she was indeed receiving benefits for the child from French Guyana, as noted by Prescott recently, but according to her, the child was “biologically” hers.
Prescott and other relatives had expressed concern about what they termed “police harassment” since New Year’s Day and the family noted that the police raided their home several times within the past three weeks. Prescott related two weeks ago that she travelled to Cayenne in French Guiana to spend time with her aunt two years back and at the time she was heavily pregnant. She said she gave birth at a local hospital in Cayenne but the child’s particulars were made in her aunt’s name since she was living illegally in the neighbouring country.
She returned to Guyana shortly after giving birth. At the time Paul was too young to travel and she noted that she left the child in her aunt’s care.
She said that the two agreed that when Bryan returned to these shores a few months after, the child would be reunited with her. But, according to Prescott, Bryan was reluctant to release the child. She had “collected” Paul once last year from her aunt but the police had instructed her to return the boy to her aunt since the woman had the relevant documents to claim the boy.
Prescott stated that the family will now be on the “lookout for anything,” while reiterating that she continued to live in fear. She also expressed hope that the matter will be settled by the courts.
