(Trinidad Guardian) The people of Trinidad and Tobago have become quitters and cowards and it is high time now that they take back the country from the hands of criminals.
This was the advice given yesterday by environmentalist Stephen Broadbridge, as he spoke out about his mother’s gruesome murder on Saturday.
Dr Claire Broadbridge, 80, was found brutally murdered in the bedroom of her house on Saturday evening. Her throat was slit and her killer/s attempted to burn the house down by setting fire to a few pieces of furniture that was on the ground floor of her home.
Speaking outside their Fondes Amandes, St Ann’s home yesterday, Broadbridge said because murders are happening every day in T&T, people are becoming immune and more and more insensitive to them. He said it was time for the people of T&T to force the police, politicians and even themselves to do their respective job and duties.
“I am fed up of T&T…people are not sensitive any more to murders. People have become a little too tolerant and that needs to stop,” Broadbridge said.
“People are quick to say time to ride out of the country because the country gone through, but the country not gone through…it’s time to take control of it. We all are quitters and cowards…the public needs to get braver and stop taking this crap.”
Broadbridge called on people to come out and speak out in order to ensure the police and politicians to do their jobs properly.
“We are the majority…the criminals are the minority…take your country back…get up and deal with this. If the police not doing their job make a fuss until they do…if the politicians not doing their job vote them out, don’t vote because you like the party (political party),” he said.
Broadbridge stressed that if the people do not stand up and deal with current spiralling crime it will reach to their own doorsteps eventually.
Up to late yesterday, several teams of investigating officers were still processing the scene. Surrounding the house, which is located on a hill, there is thick greenery, including several bamboo patches, which officers said made the “perfect escape route” for any perpetrator.
Officers are yet to determine a motive for Dr Broadbridge’s murder. However, he son strongly believes she may have been killed by one of the workers she hired to do work for her.
“Maybe the person was unhappy about the payment he got? I don’t think robbery was the motive because I didn’t see things missing. I think if it was a seasoned killer he might have tried to burn her body in the bedroom but he didn’t, he wanted to obviously not be near the body,” Broadbridge, who lives at the house with his brother, said.
He told the T&T Guardian that he was in Brasso Seco on an environmental expedition tour with a group of about 12 people when he received the tragic news.
“I got a call from a neighbour saying that they saw smoke coming from the house and that they had found my mother’s throat slit upstairs in her room. I immediately packed up and headed home. I am very angry by this. I am angry in the way my mother was killed. I am angry.”
He added: “I do hope that the Broadbridge family gets justice. I hope residents who have cameras hand over their footage to the police and I hope the police get fingerprints.”
Broadbridge described his mother as a civil servant who was very dedicated to her country.
“She experienced a lot of trouble while in her post as museum curator. The museum was underfunded and she raised funds and did her best to produce a good museum,” he said.
“She never got the support from politicians. There was a lot of sabotage from them (referring to politicians) but she still kept on trying. She had a very difficult time and was very bitter for it up until her retirement.”
Broadbridge also mentioned a confrontation she had with a well-known politician who waved a tennis racket a few times in front her face while she was at the museum, over a disagreement she had back then with a tenant of the museum. Broadbridge said it was now too late for that politician to apologise to his mother, “it was appalling that type of behaviour, for surely he was unfit to be in public office.”
British High Commissioner Tim Stew was one of scores of people who expressed shock at the killing on social media yesterday. In a Twitter post, Stew wrote: “My condolences to Stephen and the family. I’m shocked at this appalling crime against a most notable lady.”
An autopsy is expected to be conducted on Dr Broadbridge’s body today at the Forensic Science Centre in St James.