Investigations have found that the three teenage girls, who were charged and sentenced for wandering and kept in police custody for over three weeks awaiting transfer to the New Opportunity Corps, were in fact picked up by police at the Camal International Home for Children and Battered Women.
A source close to the inquiry, set up following the recent arrest of the girls, confirmed that they were held at the facility, where they were residents, although police had claimed that they were a short distance away on the road.
The girls, two 15-year-olds and a 13-year-old, had been charged with wandering and sentenced.
There had previously been conflicting reports about whether the girls were held on the road or at the home.
Magistrate Rabindranauth Singh subsequently sentenced the three girls to two years each at the New Opportunity Corps (NOC), a correctional facility at Onderneeming, Essequibo Coast. Another girl, who is 15, was also charged but released into the custody of an aunt.
Founder of the home Carmen Kissoon had told Stabroek News that the girls had run away on previous occasions and they were brought back. She had said too that because the girls were prevented from leaving they had threatened to commit suicide.
This prompted her to call in the police and officers from the Child Care & Protection Agency (CC&PA).
After their sentencing, the girls were held for a total of 24 days at the Albion Police Station as police awaited probation reports and a birth certificate for one of the girls before taking them to the Sophia Juvenile Holding Centre and then to the NOC.
Attorney Adrian Anamayah, however, filed an appeal at the New Amsterdam Magistrate’s Court challenging the decision for the girls to be sent to the NOC and for it to be set aside or reversed.
Magistrate Singh subsequently released the girls on bail on their own recognisance.
They have been placed in the care of the Canaan Home at Port Mourant, Corentyne and are said to be doing well.
The story was first made public after the head teacher of a school that one of the girls attended found out about it. There are also reports that the girls had tried to leave the orphanage because they were physically abused and mistreated, which prompted the Ministry of Human Services to order the inquiry.
