Resh­ma Ra­goonath

The moth­er of prison es­capee Ri­car­do Ma­hadeo, who was killed by po­lice in Ju­ly, has been fined $1,000 af­ter plead­ing guilty to re­sist­ing ar­rest and us­ing ob­scene lan­guage. Yes­ter­day, Hem­lawtie Ma­hadeo, 45, ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Alexan­der Prince in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates' Court, charged with the of­fences.

The moth­er of six was ar­rest­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and charged with re­sist­ing PC Ryan Ram­cha­ran in the ex­e­cu­tion of his du­ty and us­ing ob­scene lan­guage. Both of­fences oc­curred on Sep­tem­ber 2. Prince, in pass­ing sen­tence, said at aged 45, Ma­hadeo was "ma­ture" enough to know how to be­have. "You must set an ex­am­ple es­pe­cial­ly when you are in the eyes and ears of the pub­lic," he added.

At­tor­ney Bri­an Nedd said his client was "very sor­ry" for her ac­tions, how­ev­er, her son was re­cent­ly killed by po­lice. He said at the time of the in­ci­dent she had an ar­gu­ment with a rel­a­tive and at that time the po­lice of­fi­cer showed up. Ma­hadeo's son, Richar­do, of Cipero Rail­way Line, Ste Madeleine, es­caped from the Gold­en Grove Prison in Arou­ca on Ju­ly 12. He was shot and killed by po­lice at a bar in Ste Madeleine. Nedd said the woman's ac­tions at the hos­pi­tal was a "re­ac­tion" to her son's death. "Though I am sym­pa­thet­ic with you, I can­not con­done your be­hav­iour," Prince said. He or­dered that she pay $200 for us­ing ob­scene lan­guage or serve 30 days sim­ple im­pris­on­ment and pay $800 for re­sist­ing ar­rest or serve three months hard labour. She was giv­en 14 days to pay since her hus­band said he did not have all the cash to pay forth­with.

Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Wen­dell Fer­nan­do told the court that around 6.30 pm, of­fi­cers were on du­ty at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, In­de­pen­dence Av­enue, when Ma­hadeo was heard say­ing in a loud tone of voice: "Doh touch meh, you is not an (ex­ple­tive) woman po­lice." This, he said, was done in the pres­ence of sev­er­al peo­ple since the hos­pi­tal was a pub­lic place. The po­lice at­tempt­ed to ar­rest Ma­hadeo. How­ev­er, she be­gan pulling away. She was sub­dued and tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion. Prince asked Ma­hadeo if she did not know that a male po­lice of­fi­cer could ar­rest her and not on­ly woman po­lice con­sta­ble can ar­rest her. She said "No." The mag­is­trate re­spond­ed: "Well now you know."