TWO women, who appeared before Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus and charged with neglect of children, were each granted $20,000 bail, at New Amsterdam Court, in Berbice, last Friday.Kamani Bharrat, 35, of Patrick Dam, Mount Sinai usually referred to as Angoy’s Avenue, a squatting area on the eastern fringe of the New Amsterdam township, initially confessed to leaving four of her nine under-age children to fend for themselves.
But she subsequently claimed that she was at home when the Police visited.
According to her, she was invited to Central Police Station, New Amsterdam and it is while she was there that the ranks returned to her house and took her children.
Police Inspector Gail Bristol, prosecuting, said the defendant was warned, on several occasions, to send the siblings to school but she was in the habit of leaving them unattended and, quite often, they are seen untidy.
The Prosecutor said, on February 14, the Schools Welfare and Protection Officers went to the defendant’s residence with Police ranks where they met the children alone.
Consequently, the four, aged six, seven, eleven and 12 years, were taken into protective custody and have, currently, been placed at various homes in Georgetown.
Meanwhile, Narowattie Bharrat, also of Timmers Dam, in Mount Sinai, is alleged to have neglected her three under-age offspring.
She pleaded guilty and was ordered to return to Court on April 3