Aboud: A stain on the nation

That’s how president of the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association (DOMA) Gregory Aboud described the discovery yesterday of the body 20-year-old Shannon Banfield, hidden under some boxes in a storage area of the Charlotte Street, Port-of-Spain branch of IAM and Company (IAM).

“We would like to express our condolences to the family of Ms Shannon Banfield. We cannot imagine the horror that they must be feeling now. We think of all of the women of Trinidad and Tobago, of the terror which is being perpetrated on our girls and women, a terror which has been growing. (Yesterday’s) discovery is a stain, not only on the city of PoS but also on our nation at large; our women are not free to walk the streets, to go to shops to make a purchase, to go the corner to take a taxis,” Aboud lamented.

Declaring that TT citizens are “allowing our society to become more and more dangerous,” Aboud also claimed there is “evidence that criminals have become bullies of our society, that they choose the easiest targets, such as Chinese business people.” The DOMA head added that the shocking murder of this young woman only added to “the evidence” that criminals are becoming bullies of our society.

Speaking with Newsday the following day, the young woman’s mother Sherry-Ann Lopez said Banfield was deeply religious and never slept out.

“She is not a person to stay out and she was always at home.

She is also active in the Seven Day Adventist Church.

Anywhere she has to go we will drop her or her friends might sometimes give her a lift because she do not like to be out in the road especially in the night. She always gives accountability for her whereabouts,” Lopez said.