Relatives of Joshua Alleyne, the teen who hacked his girlfriend to death at Diamond, East Bank Demerara on Thursday says that the life he led was not easy and accused his mother of pushing him over the brink.
Reacting to an article published in yesterday’s Stabroek News, Alleyne’s aunt, Andrea Brandt said that the account given by Joshua’s mom Sandra Alleyne as it relates to the life of the young man was inaccurate and also pointed to several inconsistencies in the account given by the woman about the events of the day of the murder.
Joshua, 18, is accused of battering Angela McAllister with a spade before chopping her to death in the yard at his home.
His relatives yesterday came out strongly against the account given by Sandra and accused her of leading Joshua down the wrong path, tormenting his life and denying him opportunities. They did not deny that he had a temper, used drugs and engaged in theft but said that his mother was to blame.
Sandra had said that Joshua and his older brother were given to her husband by the court when they were just one and two though she did not say why she lost custody of her two children.
She had said that they ran away from their father’s home at ages 11 and 12 though she was unable to say the reason with any certainty though she recounted they said they were being mistreated.
However, Hardt said that custody was given to the grandmother because Sandra was not deemed fit to look after the children.
After the grandmother migrated, their father, Colin Baveghems took custody of them. He told Stabroek News that they had not run away from home but Sandra took them to the probation officer and got them to say that they were being mistreated and she was granted custody. However, Sandra denied them educational opportunities, he said. “They never go back to school since they leave us,” he said.
Baveghems works in the interior and said that he did not know that his son had a girlfriend but the young man would often complain of the treatment he received at the hands of his mother. The relatives said that Sandra would “torment” Joshua for money.
Sandra had said that a month after he “ran away,” Joshua stole $110 000 from a home and was sent to the New Opportunity Corps for four years. Upon his release, he came to live with her and since then he has been smoking marijuana and would hop from job to job. He had no proper schooling, she had said.
Hardt said that the money that he had stolen was from his stepmother and he stole a number of other items as well. Hardt said that after he was released from the NOC, he asked to live with her but she said that he could only stay if he returned to school and learned a trade as her son was doing.
She said that in the meantime as he waited for the classes to begin, Joshua got a job but after two weeks, he quit and said that he was going into the interior. His mother had encouraged him to do this and he told them so, relatives said. “He always had to be in a rush to get money for his mother,” Hardt said.
The relatives did not deny that Joshua had a temper and that he had engaged in theft. But he did this at the instigation of his mother, they said. Hardt said that contrary to what Sandra is now claiming, she had indeed called Angela on the day of the murder.
She said that Sandra never liked Angela and Joshua would call her sometimes to complain of his mother’s behaviour.
The relatives said that while Sandra referred to Joshua as a “monster” she was the one who “created that monster.”
