The mother of Adrian Bishop who was shot dead by police last month says her decision to send him to the New Opportunity Corps (NOC) is her biggest regret as she believes the institution did nothing to rehabilitate him but rather led him into a life of crime.
“I don’t think no parent should send their child deh. I send me son there and I regret it. From then on Adrian start running jail,” Adene told Sunday Stabroek while lamenting that she was left horrified when she learnt of the conditions at the institution.
Bishop, during his almost two-year stay at institution, often complained to his mother about the poor quality of food, girls and boys being raped and being thrown into a dark hole naked. Similar revelations were made by former residents of the institution earlier this year.
Three weeks ago, the 25-year-old man was shot dead by a policeman who was said to be acting on a report that his female colleague had been physically assaulted. Based on reports, Bishop and the policewoman had shared an intimate relationship. Though police had said that Bishop was fatally shot in the head with a shotgun during a scuffle, residents dismissed this account as inaccurate saying that Bishop had put up no resistance and that the policeman pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger. Weeks before he was killed he had been charged with armed robbery and had been released on cash bail by the court.
Adene’s comments about the state of the NOC comes a week after this newspaper was told that the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), after reviewing a police file on sexual and physical abuse claims made against NOC staff, recommended that the Ministry of Youth launch an investigation into the operation of the institution. High on the list of recommendations, this newspaper had been told, is a complete overhaul of the institution and for qualified and professional staff to be hired to work with the troubled children who are sent there.
Adene, her voice laced with grief just days after she laid her first born to rest, recalled that he had been sent to the NOC at the age of 16 and remained there for about two years.
She said she was the one who had asked for him to be sent to the institution as he was misbehaving and was out of control. She recalled that at the time he was not attending school and was following “bad company”.
She recalled that one day she took him to the “juvenile branch” and he was later charged with vagrancy and wandering. “He use to sell pastry because he didn’t want to go to adult education. I put him to sell pastry and he start riding with biker boys on North Road,” she recalled.
According to Adene, she caught him engaged in this practice and made the decision to take him to the juvenile branch where she informed officials: “I can’t control he no mo. I tell them that I got more children and if they could put him in the facility.” She said she was becoming scared that he would get involved in “serious problems. I was a single parent and couldn’t handle it.”
She said that after giving a statement, Bishop was taken to court and it was there she asked the magistrate to send him to the NOC until “I see like he start behaving himself.”
Adene told Sunday Stabroek, “I thought that it was a good facility as in straightening him and bringing he up in a way that I think he was suppose to be but then he start calling me and complaining about the ill treatment that does go on there.”
She said he told her of many instances of abuse, including sexual abuse of both male and female residents. Adene said her son begged her to visit him and she began to secure passes from the Youth Ministry to visit the Essequibo Coast facility every other month. “I used to… carry clothes, milk Quaker oats… He used to tell me what to bring,” she recalled as based on what the then teen told her they were being poorly fed.
She said that after nearly two years, Bishop decided to escape as for him the situation had reached a point where he could no longer take it. “He had to get away because of the conditions. It was too bad,” she said with a shake of her head.
Adene told this newspaper that when she made that decision to send him to the NOC she held the expectation that “they would pull he into line and mould he.” She said she expected the isolated area and different environment would bring about behaviour change and he would “come out right.”
According to her, the facility “only got a name…it ain’t got no meaning.” She is convinced that being at NOC made her son worse. She recalled that adding to the already difficult situation was the fact that he had witnessed a murder while there. Incidentally the boy who died, she said, shared the same name with him.
According to Adene, Bishop never received any counselling. “That [the incident] traumatised him and from then I think Adrian become a different child… it used to give he nightmares,” she said.
The woman stated that after the nightmares began he started calling her regularly with complaints of different kinds. She recalled that he would often ask her when she was coming to see him and would beg that she do so quickly. She said that based on her knowledge he was never involved in fights.
Once there he had quickly gained the trust of the staff and in addition to cooking and baking in the kitchen he was often sent outside of the institution to run errands.
She recalled that one day she received a call from Bishop who told her he had escaped and was at Parika. Adene told Sunday Stabroek that she told him he could not come home and urged him to return to the institution. She said her son never returned and eventually she received a telephone call from officials of the institution who were inquiring about his whereabouts.
Bishop ended up at a relative in Garnett Street and after no one turned up at her house looking for him, she said, she told him to go home. “I had he home here but I was still scared after listening to things that he was seeing going on there. He said ‘mommy I couldn’t stay there. Mommy I got sisters and brothers and deh is no place to send nobody’,” she said.
According to Adene, it was on Bishop’s advice that she did not send one of her daughters, who was misbehaving, to the institution. “He tell me ‘mommy do all yah best don’t ever send none of we there. This is not no nice place,’” she recalled.
“I blame meself. Even me family members blaming me and saying that I is the reason why Adrian turn bad because I send him there but remember now, I thought that it was a good institution,” she said sadly.
She said that after he escaped, her son related even more troubling incidents to her.
She recalled that every time she had visited she met a different officer running the institution. “That is a sign of something being wrong because he keep telling me is a next one deh deh. They keep changing them,” she said.
Adene said that Bishop would point out to her the females who were pregnant whenever she would visit. She informed this newspaper that one of Bishop’s cousins who was a resident had left the institution pregnant.
But not all of his time at the institution was bad, as he was able to produce craft items including a rolling pin, a razor blade table, a hand grater and picture frame.
“He said ‘mommy you does gotta plant to eat’ so he choose to wuk kitchen so he could eat propa…,” she said adding that he also learned to bake at the NOC.
She expressed disappointment at seeing the children wearing uniforms similar to what is worn in jail.
“That whole place is a mess,” she said, adding that Bishop had once related to her that he was locked in a hole. He said that he use to try and behave himself because he saw firsthand what would happen to the others when they misbehave. “There was this lockdown hole in the earth where they use to thrown you down in naked skin and they use to keep throwing wata on yuh,” she said adding that her son went through “hardship” at the institution. She added that when he made up his mind to escape “it was real get away. He seh ‘mommy me ain’t going back. Me ain’t kay if you want me to go back I ain’t going back.’”
She said he had complained bitterly about the food, that the rice was soppy and that after the officers were served the best, the children were left to eat such things as pumpkin leaf and sweet potato leaf with callalu.
She said her son had related to her that some days he would go down to the farm and eat nuts and “pinch panch” whatever she had sent for him.
Regret
Continuing to express regret at sending her son to the NOC, Adene advised parents who might be in a similar position as she was so many years ago, not to send their children there. “I wouldn’t advise no mother to send their child there. I think you should sit down and try and talk to yah child, mould them and either get them in a church youth group or let the church pray for them…,” she said. “I don’t think people should send deh chirren back deh because they making a sad, sad mistake. I do it and I regret it. I loss me son after all dem years with all these things by sending him there,” Adene said.
She continued that had she not sent him to NOC he may have still been alive today as in the weeks before his death she saw signs of his willingness to turn his life around.
Adene said that Adrian, having been exposed to the bad side of life decided to continue on that path particularly given his experiences at the institution. “Is different people in there. Is the good, the bad, the indifferent, the ugly and everybody does mix up there,” she said.
Adene said she had tried her utmost with her son. She said she did all she could to ensure that he got an education and to steer him along the right path. However, it was bad company that eventually led him astray. “Company is what caused Adrian’s death. I warn Adrian. I sit down and talk to him,” she said adding that there was a point that she was so mad with him that she separated herself from him and ceased all communication. She said she had told him that he was her first born and that she loved him but he had to be the one who had to be willing to change. “These last days I see like he was willing to change because he start coming to me and say mommy ah gon come to church with yuh. I gon listen to yuh,” she recalled.
According to her, the police frustrated him as they often targeted him for no reason. She said just before his death, he was arrested and moved from station to station before being released on $15,000 bail. She said he had denied being involved in wrongdoing when she told him that he could not be involved in wrongdoing and be around her. She said that at one time she told him to either start behaving himself and move away from bad company or stop going to her home.
“I put him out of the yard. I put him out of my house and I told him that this is your life and if you choose to change it you can come here …you can sleep here with me and I gon help you but if you choose to live a wrong life pass 188 straight. Don’t come in here,” she recalled.
She said he had promised her at that point to change. She recalled Bishop on his knees at her home praying with some members of her church. Fighting back tears, she said she found that after the police kept harassing him he became frustrated.
“I ain’t seh that he perfect you know. He was doing stupid things but at the time when he was ready to change and turn he life around this is what happened to him,” she stressed.
Asked what she thinks needs to be done with the NOC, the mother of eight said that the institution should become like the National Service and be under the control of the army. The current administrators, she said, are incapable of running it the way it should be. “Ministry of Culture ain’t got nobody fit enough to run duh. It should run under some sort of tight organisation,” she said while adding that too many bad things have been happening over there over the years.
She acknowledged that there are one and two programmes there for the children such as sports but that is not enough, pointing out that no attention is paid to the educational advancement of those living at the NOC.
Concerned
APNU MP Christopher Jones said the revelations made by Adene bother him. He said they underscore his concerns that the institution is failing many young people and turning them into juvenile delinquents.
Jones, who had been at the forefront of making abuse allegations public, stated that Bishop was probably one of hundreds or thousands of youths who went to the NOC and did not receive the rehabilitation that they were sent there for.
He stressed that there is no programme after the NOC and based on reports from former residents when they go into the institution they are treated badly and then released into society. Jones, while pointing out that his request to visit the institution is yet to be honoured, said what was related by Adene was a confirmation of all that had been said to him previously. He said her story was similar to the ones he had heard before.
Jones told Sunday Stabroek that the institution went rogue years ago when it placed under the control of the ministry. He said that it is nothing more than a “big gated prison”.
Turning his attention to the food and diet, he said that every year Parliament allocates money and as such there is no doubt that money is available. He said what has been happening based on what some former residents have said, the caregivers would fetch home some of the food items when they arrive.
He said the NOC is “a complete no no. The NOC should be the very last resort that you should think about.” According to Jones, parents and guardians should seek counselling and guidance from religious leaders and elders in the community.
“If you send your children there they will end up broken,” he advised while adding that some of the females who exit the institution eventually turn to a life of prostitution while the boys get involved in criminal activity.
“When these children come out of there they have nothing to do and nothing to their names. No certificate nothing. We don’t see the evidence coming out of the ministry. Everything is just a farce,” he said.
He said that based on what is happening at the NOC, the country’s future is being damaged.
Jones also expressed the view the institution ought to be under the care and control of the ministries of Education and Human Services and Social Security and not the Youth Ministry.
