Jensen La Vende

The moth­er of six-year-old Keyian­na Noel is plead­ing with the man who took her daugh­ter and lat­er re­leased her un­harmed to stop run­ning like a fugi­tive.In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day the woman said she was con­vinced the man was go­ing to sur­ren­der to po­lice as promised yes­ter­day. The 27-year-old vowed to stand by his side dur­ing the or­deal of court ap­pear­ances and lengthy ad­journ­ments.

Noel was grabbed from her fa­ther's Dun­can Street, Port-of-Spain, home on Tues­day af­ter­noon. Af­ter her fa­ther called the An­ti-Kid­nap­ping Squad and po­lice fol­lowed sev­er­al leads, they man­aged to ne­go­ti­ate for Keyian­na's re­lease. The next day she was dropped off at the home of the ab­duc­tor's sis­ter, who then called the po­lice to arrange for the child to be re­turned to her par­ents.

The in­ci­dent once again threw the na­tion in­to a pan­ic mode, hav­ing al­ready been trau­ma­tised by the re­cent ab­duc­tion and killing of Keyan­na Cum­ber­batch. Keyian­na's safe re­turn thus al­lowed cit­i­zens to breathe a lit­tle bet­ter ahead of the Christ­mas sea­son.The sus­pect promised to sur­ren­der to the po­lice yes­ter­day af­ter he vis­it­ed his two-year old daugh­ter, who he de­scribed as the "ap­ple of his eye".The sus­pect nev­er showed up.

Noel's moth­er said: "Come and look for yuh child and stop run­ning like a fugi­tive. You are not a fugi­tive."The moth­er of four said she was in con­stant con­tact with the sus­pect and made her­self and the child avail­able on Thurs­day night for him to see his child be­fore sur­ren­der­ing. He al­so failed to show then.The man told both the T&T Guardian and his in­tend­ed at­tor­ney Fa­reed Ali he would sur­ren­der to po­lice yes­ter­day af­ter­noon af­ter meet­ing briefly with the T&T Guardian.

Around 5 pm he tele­phoned in a pan­ic say­ing he was not will­ing to sur­ren­der "with all them peo­ple there" re­fer­ring to oth­er me­dia hous­es who camped out­side the Guardian Build­ing on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain hop­ing to get a glimpse of the sus­pect. The sus­pect said he want­ed to sur­ren­der to po­lice and was hop­ing to have his day in court quick­ly.

The T&T Guardian con­tact­ed ASP Ajith Per­sad who made prepa­ra­tions for the sus­pect to sur­ren­der. By 6 pm, two-and-a-half hours af­ter his in­tend­ed ar­rival, it was ev­i­dent that he would not show up, de­spite be­ing giv­en as­sur­ances that there was noth­ing to wor­ry about.

On Thurs­day the sus­pect, in an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, said he was pushed in­to ab­duct­ing Noel be­cause he was be­ing de­nied ac­cess to his own daugh­ter. The man said all he want­ed was to care for the "ap­ple of his eye". He promised that af­ter see­ing her yes­ter­day he would sur­ren­der.The child's moth­er, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied by name said the sus­pect had at all times full ac­cess to his child and she was not be­ing vin­dic­tive.

She said she left the sus­pect on Mon­day night af­ter get­ting too weary of their con­stant ar­gu­ments and fights.Asked what ad­vice she would give to sin­gle moth­ers out there, the woman said: "As women stand up and take care of your child. You don't have to wait on no man to help you out. There is so­cial wel­fare that could as­sist be­cause at the end of the day some men say that is not their child and they are not mind­ing no oth­er man child".Po­lice are still search­ing for the man who is want­ed for kid­nap­ping.