Police charge student in custody
–injured student discharged from hospital
–parent cries foul at treatment of son
17-year-old New Campbellville Secondary School student Alwyn Wayne spent close to six days in police custody, was asked to pay $100,000 station bail, appeared in court charged with felonious wounding, and was placed on $75,000 bail. Now the young man is faced with expulsion from his school.
During an interview with this publication last week, Alwyn Wayne’s mother explained that her son had been beaten by a gang of boys who attended the same school.
The unrepresented Alwyn pleaded guilty to the charge read to him in court yesterday.
Avalon Hall also appeared in court…as the complainant. Hall is the student who allegedly heads the gang that reportedly attacked Wayne. He was hospitalized after he allegedly sustained injuries from one of two weapons — a knife and/or an ice picker — both of which he reportedly had in hand when he and his gang reportedly attacked Wayne on the day in question. Hall was discharged from hospital on Monday.

RIGHTS TRAMPLED UPON
Meanwhile, Alwyn Wayne‘s mother believes that police had trampled on her son’s rights when he was detained without being changed or placed on station bail way past the stipulated 72-hour deadline mandated by law.
She told the Guyana Chronicle yesterday that it was only after she “attempted to behave bad” that the police informed her they were placing her son on $100,000 station bail.
The woman said she refused to pay the sum, since her son was expected to appear in court the next day (Tuesday, Feb7) and was likely to be placed on another set of bail by the presiding magistrate.
On Monday, this newspaper published Alwyn Wayne’s story as narrated by his mother during an interview in which she recounted the ordeal. She had mentioned that Avalon Hall, the alleged leader of the gang, was in the habit of targeting her son, and had even made the gang’s presence known by passing several times by her home.
The woman also recounted that she has had to report to the school’s head teacher the issue with the gang, and the fact that they had beaten her son, rendering him unconscious.
The woman had contended then, and maintained during her conversation with this newspaper yesterday, that the police had failed to properly investigate the issue.
According to the woman, her son was the only person the police had placed an interest in, and he was the only one who had been charged; the police seemed less interested in the boys who had allegedly pounced on her son.
The visibly frustrated woman lamented that it was a gang comprised of more than five members that had ‘banked’ her son, and under those circumstances, it was impossible for her son to be the one inflicting the grievous bodily harm.
“They (police) ‘ring down’ my phone whole day, insisting that I should take him to the station. What happen to the other guys? Why they cannot go and pick up the other guys, and they are well aware that is not he alone was involved in it?”
During the initial interview with the Guyana Chronicle, the woman was asked what could be the reason for the gang’s interest in her son. She replied that she was not sure. According to her, after she had realised what has now become a trend, she asked her son why the boys had continued to target him, and he had replied that he was unaware.
The mother claimed that, sometime ago, she had to approach the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security after the head teacher of the school had failed to act on reports that her son made to her about the gang.
The woman also claimed that she had approached the head teacher on a previous occasion, after her son had complained that the head teacher had physically abused him. She said the head teacher has since apologised for that incident.
Meanwhile, the Guyana Chronicle yesterday contacted the school’s acting head teacher, Ms. Gail Archer, to get a comment from her in relation to the school’s plans to expel Alwyn Wayne. The response this publication got was, “I don’t know who feeding you with information, and/or where you getting your information from. You go back to them, because I know nothing of what you are talking of.”