Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 06, 2014 News
The 2012 Commission of Inquiry report into the disturbances at the New Opportunity Corps will be handed over to the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport today. Commission Chairman Justice Winston Moore told Kaieteur News yesterday that he was in the process of “dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s” in the report.
He added that it would not be unrealistic that the report is handed over to the Ministry. Justice Moore said that once he hands over the report, it would be up to the Minister to disclose the findings. When asked why the report took so long, almost two years, Moore said that he could not explain the delay.
This new report comes on the heels of new sex allegations against caregivers at the NOC. Minister Frank Anthony, at a recent press conference stated that he had written to Moore over a period of time asking for the report to be submitted.
He said that Moore has not been paid for the work as yet; since the agreement was “after completion and handover” he would receive a “stipend”.
The Minister said that the Board, as far as he is aware, produced a preliminary report. That report is about two years behind. The inquiry was set up to investigate the violent breakout at the New Opportunity Corps (NOC) in 2012.
Earlier this year, Chairman of the COI, Justice Winston Moore, had told Kaieteur News that the report has already been prepared, and that a review was being done to ensure that everything was accurate and did not have loopholes.
The Commission’s work has had some delays after its initial Chairman, Justice Prem Persaud, resigned just as investigations were about to commence.
Reports are that the teenagers stormed through several communities while armed with cutlasses and other weapons. A female dormitory and a workshop within the compound were set alight. Seventeen young ladies who were housed in that dorm had to be relocated.
Subsequent to the rampage, some of the inmates claimed that they were abused by staffers and that they had reached breaking point.
A senior Ministry of Culture official had however stated that none of the juveniles made any such allegations to the team which visited the centre prior to the escape.
It was as a result of these controversial statements, that a Commission of Inquiry was set up.
The five-member Board of Inquiry includes Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport, Alfred King; Senior Superintendent and Divisional Commander of ‘D’ Division, Christopher Griffith; Senior Probation Officer of the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, Trenetta Scott; and Mr. Maydha Persaud, a retired headmaster and member of the Teaching Service Commission.
Of the 48 inmates, eight were charged with arson, while the rest were arraigned for escaping from a training school. Twelve of the inmates are females.
Thirteen of the juveniles pleaded guilty to escaping from the NOC, while the remaining 35 entered not guilty pleas.
Sixteen of the inmates were remanded to the juvenile facility in Sophia, Georgetown, while the other 32 were returned to the NOC.
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