(Trinidad Guardian) Caricom leaders are failing their people by excluding the lower section of society from working and travelling freely among Caricom nations.
So said defence attorney Subhas Panday in a plea for leniency for his three clients, all Jamaican women, who were charged with working in Trinidad without work permits.
Panday made the submission before Magistrate Ava Vandenburg-Bailey in the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court yesterday.
Ann-Marie Mannings, 50, Aldeath Campbell-Johnson, 45 and Tiaja Rae-Wright, 19, all of St Thomas Parish in Jamaica, were arrested while on duty at the Village Plaza, Pleasantville, last Thursday.
Still dressed in their security uniforms when they appeared in court, the women pleaded guilty to the charges.
They were employed with Securiserve Ltd, a security company. (See sidebar)
In court yesterday, Panday appealed for Vandenburg-Bailey to show sympathy for his clients, saying they came to Trinidad to try to make a better life for themselves and their children back home.
He said Mannings was a single mother of six children, two of whom are minors and she came to Trinidad on June 18.
Rae-Wright has just left secondary school, Panday said, and was trying to save money to go to university in Jamaica. She came to Trinidad on December 4, 2014 and has overstayed her time.
Campbell-Johnson is also a single mother and she came to Trinidad on April 21.
Panday asked Vandenburg-Bailey to discharge his clients, saying Trinidad is the New York of the Caribbean and his clients had done nothing to deprave the society.
He told the court his clients all had tickets to go back to Jamaica and would leave as soon as they were released.
“They are trying to make an honest living, even if it not legal, they are doing the jobs that Trinidadians don’t want to do,” said the lawyer.
Panday said the women were fulfilling a need in the employment sector.
“No Trinidadians want to work until 9 pm, they afraid they get shot. That is why our society is flooded with so much Cepep and URP, no Trinidadian wants to do this kind of hard work,” he added.
However, Vandenburg-Bailey said while Caricom leaders may indeed have failed their people, the accused knew what they were doing was illegal and they still did it.
She fined them $450 each and allowed them one week to pay the fine.
The charges
According to the charges read to the court around 9 pm on August 13, PC Howard, a police officer attached to the Immigration Department went to the Village Plaza, Pleasantville, where he met the trio carrying out their duties as security officers.
When he asked them what nationality they were all three replied “Jamaican.”
However, when Howard asked them for their work permits, they did not have any.
