‘Blame govts for Emily’s death’

Meanwhile, Coalition Against Domestic Violence president Diana Mahabir-Wyatt said the blame for Emily’s death should rest at the doors of successive governments which failed over the last six years to implement legislation to establish a children’s authority.

Doctors declared Emily dead on arrival when she was taken to the San Fernando General Hospital by a relative on Monday night. An autopsy revealed she was raped, buggered, burnt about the body with cigarette butts and savagely beaten. Two relatives are currently in police custody.

The ministry’s communications officer Carol Ann McKenzie yesterday said preliminary investigations indicate no report on Emily’s case was ever filed at its Victoria Division office in San Fernando.

McKenzie said in cases of suspected child abuse, the division makes inquiries and then contacts the police. In some cases, the police contacts the division for assistance with counselling or to find a safe house to place the child in.

She stressed the police is the only agency with “full authority” to respond to remove a child from an unsafe environment, ensure the child undergoes a medical examination and determine whether criminal charges should be laid.

Although the police had the authority to take action, Mahabir-Wyatt said the public should not blame them for Emily’s death.

She complained that the community police had been “deliberately stripped” of 400 well-trained officers and was down to one-tenth of that number to cover the entire country.

The former independent senator said the coalition has been lobbying successive UNC and PNM governments to implement the Children’s Authority Act.

The act ensured that children like Emily could be taken to a special children’s authority “where their needs could be professionally assessed and they could be placed where they would be best looked after and treated.”