ANOTHER gruesome murder as Neesa Gopaul’s is another sad saga and it irks me to see the way the police is treated in all of this. It would appear that in the first place the mother, I hate to call her thus, in her sadistic lustful pleasures with the co- accused had a well crafted plan and executed it as a professional. She first “got rid” of the offending husband then disconnected her daughter from school, friends and family, persons who would have made a difference in Neesa’s life.
In the case of the police to whom the deceased made a report of the horrible goings on in that house and as soon as the police were about making headway in the matter the mother quickly forced her daughter to make a hasty retreat on her story thus leaving the lawmen helpless to pursue the matter. She also removed her from her school where she might have received much needed help from friends and teachers. That woman disconnected her phone so that the teen was completely cut off from the outside world left at the mercy of her torturers. In all of this the mother would have used the excuse that she was exercising her parental right as mother. We know that this was not the case, that mother was only using her daughter as a pawn in a twisted love game.
Let me say here that the police cannot, I repeat cannot usurp a parent’s right. In the same way a police cannot impose their way on an abused victim if that victim fails to prosecute or retracts on his/her statement. This is a common, oftentimes deadly mistake made by many of our womenfolk, who make a report to the police about an abusing mate but in the same breath withdraws the accusation or turn around and defends the accused, in such instances the police cannot proceed with a charge, in Neesa Gopaul’s case of course that retraction was done under duress and this should have at least set the alarm bells ringing. Here is where the Human Services Ministry comes in, armed with information of the blocked phones the reports of marks of violence on the teen and the sudden withdrawal from school of an A grade student they should have taken that mother to court forthwith. Getting that matter into the spotlight and engaging all parties it would have been difficult for those responsible to have committed the crime. Whereas when you keep things quiet and away from the public gaze the results could be deadly.
So the blame lies squarely at the feet of the workers of the Ministry of Human Services who need to take an in depth look at the proper functioning of that institution.