Opposition Leader Ralph Gonsalves says that the police could be made to answer a case of unlawful detention after a woman was kept in custody on the weekend in connection with the distribution of housing materials.
Gonsalves, a lawyer, presented the case on Star FM, his Unity Labour Party’s radio station on Tuesday, describing it as “an egregious matter; terrible matter”.
He said the person in question is Anesia Christopher, a “wonderful lady” from South Central Windward who had been a senior housing assessor.
“On Friday, the police took her up. They kept her until 11 o’clock the night and asked her to come back to the Colonarie Police Station on the morning of Saturday,” Gonsalves said, adding that he saw the woman at his house in Gorse after he was told about the development on Saturday.
Presenting what he said were “the facts of the case”, the former prime minister said it was a matter of “clear, bad governance and, more and more, the denial of the rights of this woman”.
Gonsalves said Christopher had received a letter instructing her to proceed on vacation leave. He said it was later announced on radio “that they’re all going to be fired.
“She didn’t get her letter yet that she was fired. But be that as it may, the Ministry of Mobilisation got in touch with the Ministry of Housing about three particular cases in the South Central Windward area, which cried out for assistance.
“… it’s a very difficult situation for them, extraordinarily difficult for the people,” he said, adding that as a result, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Housing “enlisted the assistance of Miss Christopher to distribute materials.
“The Ministry of Housing organised, not miss Christopher, for a truck, which was incidentally owned by a policeman and driven by a policeman to pick up materials at the Camden Park warehouse for housing, at Arnos Vale and to pass at North Union to collect a few pieces of plywood,” Gonsalves said.
He said somebody apparently told “a politician on the NDP side” that Christopher had the truck to distribute the materials to the three people.
Gonsalves declined to identify the NDP politician, saying, “I want him to come and say something. His name would be called, but I’m a fair and reasonable person. I want him to give himself an opportunity to answer what I’m saying”.
He said the politician contacted a particular senior police officer and as a result of that report, Christopher was taken to the Colonarie Police Station.
“Shortly after Miss Christopher was at the Colonarie Police Station, the permanent secretary called the Colonarie Police Station and said, ‘I am the accounting officer in the Ministry of Housing. We asked — the ministry asked for a favour to be done by Miss Christopher, and that’s all she was doing. She hasn’t stolen any materials. She hasn’t done anything illegal. She was just helping. That’s all she was doing.’”
However, the police still kept Christopher in custody after receiving the call and told her Friday night that she had to be moved to the Georgetown Police Station because Colonarie did not have the proper accommodations to keep her.
“In other words, from the moment of the inquiry, when the police got the information from the permanent secretary that Miss Christopher was authorised by her to distribute these materials, from that point onwards, she was falsely imprisoned. Because she couldn’t leave,” Gonsalves said.
He said that Christopher was not released until Commissioner of Police Enville Williams was contacted.
“… the Commissioner wasn’t contacted by me on the night of Friday. I didn’t know about this until Saturday,” the opposition leader said.
“The commissioner asked, I’ve been advised, for Miss Christopher to be sent home from Georgetown. … I was called early Saturday morning, and then by then, they’d also contacted another lawyer.
“I, naturally, got into the work of doing my legal work. Not that I’m going to court,” Gonsalves said, adding that he had played for his license to practice law this year, having not practised for almost 25 years that he was prime minister.
“This lady is in South Central; she has no control over the warehouse in Campden Park. Somebody has to sign out for the materials in Campden Park, and also in Arnos Vale and also, in fact, at North Union.
“And all of that was done under the authorisation and direction of whom? The permanent secretary, who is, in law, the accounting officer. Of course, the permanent secretary did nothing wrong. And the individual did nothing wrong,” Gonsalves said.
He said Christopher told him that she was not fed while in custody at the Colonarie Police Station.
“She didn’t eat up in Georgetown up to 11 o’clock the night. She said she was so distressed because they told her she had to go back to Colonarie the Saturday morning,” Gonsalves said.
“This particular politician who requested the police to get in on the act — notice I’m not saying this NDP politician did anything where he misbehaved in public office, because I don’t know what he told — could be just to find out.
“But whatever happened, the consequence of that call is that she was detained when, very swiftly, the reason for her detention completely evaporated when the permanent secretary called and said, ‘Listen, I authorised Miss Christopher to help me, to help the ministry with this thing’,” Gonsalves said.
“The irony of all this is that I’ve been advised that one of the families, in fact, the major family with the distribution, is a family which is not a ULP family. I’m not saying any more, any other than that,” he said.
Ralph Gonsalves tries any and everything to throw soot in the government stew. The government isn’t even two months old.
It matters not whether this family in ULP or not. It is being made to look as though it is NDP people that was being helped and look what happened. The fact is, they should have been helped long before the election, but they weren’t labour. Your currency has been lost. Give the admin space to do their assessment and see what needs to be done.
He Ralph started this whole distribution of lumber and cement for votes, it was getting out of hand, all this things need to stop, no accountability under his governance was going on, people building all sort of building they haven’t broke a sweat to build, i wonder how some of these people sleep at night knowing all the wrong they have done.