Resh­ma Ra­goonath

A Clax­ton Bay moth­er who plead­ed guilty to will­ful­ly ne­glect­ing her ten-year-old son was or­dered yes­ter­day to at­tend drug re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion coun­sel­ing af­ter be­ing placed on a bond for one year. An­janie Ra­goo, 40, of Union Vil­lage, Clax­ton Bay, was or­dered to un­der­go the pro­gramme as a con­di­tion of her bond when she ap­peared be­fore San Fer­nan­do Fifth Court mag­is­trate In­dar Ja­groo.

Ra­goo, who was un­rep­re­sent­ed, had plead­ed guilty to the charge that on Au­gust 11, at Union Vil­lage, St Mar­garet's, she did will­ful­ly ne­glect or ex­pose her ten-year-old son in a man­ner to cause him suf­fer­ing or in­jury to health. The charge was laid by WPC Pitt.

Yes­ter­day she re­turned to court for sen­tenc­ing. Her hus­band, Ju­nior El­liot, who was wip­ing his eyes in court, as­sured Ja­groo he would make sure that "mis­take" did not hap­pen again.

Ja­groo asked the woman if she had a drink­ing prob­lem and she said: "No, I do not think so." The mag­is­trate said he need­ed the in­ter­ven­tion of a pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer to mon­i­tor her. How­ev­er, he said the Pro­ba­tion Ser­vices were not func­tion­ing as it should and sent a po­lice of­fi­cer to find a pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer in the oth­er courts but one could not be found. "I am not sur­prised,"?the mag­is­trate said. Ja­groo, in pass­ing sen­tence on Ra­goo, said: "You ad­mit­ted that you do use al­co­hol but you do not have a prob­lem.

"I am go­ing to put you on a bond for one year to keep the peace." He or­dered her to re­port to the Pro­ba­tion Of­fice once a week and speak to an of­fi­cer to set up an ap­point­ment for coun­sel­ing. He al­so or­dered that Ra­goo at­tend drug re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion coun­selling in San Fer­nan­do.