LEAVE MY CHILD ALONE

Her mother Yvonne Wall, a 65-year-old pensioner told Newsday, “Those boys (in the area) does tell them (pushers) don’t give the girl nothing to sell because if police comes, she cannot run. But they not listening and the beauty about it is when she gets locked up, none of them coming with a dollar to help me.” Michaelene has a clubbedfeet deformity and walks on her ankles. The young woman was spared a jail term yesterday when Magistrate Jasmath, sitting in the Second Court, opted to place her on a $5,000 bond, ordering Wall to be of good behaviour for the next three years.

Should she re-appear in court, the Magistrate warned, she will go to jail. On Sunday, police arrested Wall inside a house with seven small packets of marijuana in her possession. An angry Yvonne said despite her best efforts to prevent her daughter from using and selling drugs, there are those intent on keeping her in the trade.

It is this reason, the concerned mother said, she must move out of the environment if she is to save her daughter who she claims, is not well-educated. The angry mother is now making a public appeal for an HDC house.

“I must come out of this environment,” Yvonne told Newsday yesterday, “It is the only way to help her.” Yvonne, her husband Michael Nurse, 74, along with Michaelene occupy a dilapidated one-bedroom house which she rents at $450 per month. “My living conditions are the worse,” Yvonne said yesterday. “When my daughter has to use the bathroom, which is outside, I have to hold her hand. We tired encounter snakes in the bathroom.” Yvonne said that at times they are forced to use a neighbour’s facility to ease themselves. Her family, she said, is extremely poor.

On Sunday night, Yvonne confronted the man accused of giving Michaelene marijuana to sell but he denied being responsible.

“But everyone tell me is he. When my child gets lock up, is me and me alone to face the music.” Yesterday, Michaelene’s attorneys Frank Gittens and Chantal Paul called on citizens to help lobby for a home for the family saying conditions under which they live are inhumane. “If we want to help Michaelene we have to get her out of La Romaine,” they said.

The young woman first shot into the news in March 2016, when she was held with 14 grammes of marijuana near her home.

Disabled veterinarian Dr Kryiaan Singh stepped in and paid the fine. She was again held in February this year on a similar charge and was fined $4,000 or 18 months in jail. Speaking to Newsday yesterday, Singh said nothing had been done to empower Michaelene since she was first arrested. He said the state needs to do more for the disabled.