Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The moth­er of a mur­der ac­cused, who died in hos­pi­tal days af­ter be­ing se­ri­ous­ly in­jured in a fra­cas at the Port-of-Spain State Prison on Tues­day, has vowed to take le­gal ac­tion.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, hours af­ter her Sher­lon Brown’s death was of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced by the T&T Prison Ser­vice yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, his moth­er promised to seek jus­tice for the 26-year-old, claim­ing he was tak­en to the hos­pi­tal un­con­scious and had not re­gained con­scious­ness up to the time of his death.

She said: “Ap­par­ent­ly, they (prison of­fi­cers) were the judge, ju­ry, and pros­e­cu­tor...They beat my son to a fraz­zle, to where they killed my son.”

The woman, who on­ly iden­ti­fied her­self as Nicole, said she on­ly learned her son was among the pris­on­ers who were in­jured in the in­ci­dent when she was con­tact­ed by fel­low pris­on­ers on Tues­day evening. She claimed she on­ly re­ceived of­fi­cial con­fir­ma­tion from prison au­thor­i­ties the fol­low­ing day.

She said she lat­er went to the prison to get writ­ten per­mis­sion to vis­it him at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

“I got re­al dif­fi­cul­ties in try­ing to see him. Every­body kept giv­ing me a run-around,” she said.

She claimed she ex­pe­ri­enced a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion when she got the ap­proval and went to the hos­pi­tal.

She claimed when she was even­tu­al­ly al­lowed to see her son, his head was ban­daged and he was still un­con­scious. She said she over­heard a nurse say­ing he had menin­gi­tis or tu­ber­cu­lo­sis while there. She claimed she was even­tu­al­ly al­lowed to speak to a neu­ro­sur­geon, who ex­plained that his skull was not frac­tured.

The woman said she re­turned to the hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day morn­ing to pay for a tu­ber­cu­lo­sis test but was told it was no longer nec­es­sary.

Short­ly af­ter leav­ing the hos­pi­tal, she learned he had died. Once again, the news did not come first from prison au­thor­i­ties but from her son’s fel­low re­man­dees at the prison.

Brown’s moth­er said she planned to have a pri­vate au­top­sy done on his body af­ter one is done at the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James next week.

“They can’t tell me he died of no tu­ber­cu­lo­sis be­cause they would have known that be­fore. Then every­body in the cell had to be test­ed,” she said.

Asked to de­scribe her son in one word, she said car­ing.

“He al­ways left him­self un­done for some­one. You could al­ways count on him to help you with some­thing,” she said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Brown’s lawyer Alex­ia Romero said she was shocked by his death, as she saw him when she vis­it­ed the prison on Mon­day.

“He was a very qui­et fel­la. When I saw him he was healthy and strong,” she said.

She said she and his fam­i­ly will wait on both au­top­sies be­fore com­menc­ing a wrong­ful death law­suit.

In a me­dia re­lease an­nounc­ing Brown’s death, act­ing Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar ex­pressed con­do­lences, as he not­ed an au­top­sy will have to be per­formed to de­ter­mine the cause of death.

He not­ed that Brown’s death will al­so be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Prison Ser­vice and T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

“Com­mis­sion­er Ra­moutar al­so stat­ed that coun­selling ser­vices of­fered to of­fi­cers will be ex­tend­ed to in­mates and fam­i­ly of the de­ceased, if re­quired,” the re­lease stat­ed.

Brown, of Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James, first en­tered the prison in late Oc­to­ber 2020, when he was re­mand­ed in­to cus­tody af­ter be­ing charged along­side two men with mur­der­ing 22-year-old Joshua For­tune.

For­tune was shot dead near his home on Bal­badie Hill, Belle Vue, Long Cir­cu­lar, St James, on Sep­tem­ber 18, 2019.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the in­ci­dent at the prison oc­curred around 11 am on Tues­day. In a press re­lease, the Prison Ser­vice said it stemmed from a dis­pute be­tween a pris­on­er and a prison of­fi­cer.

“It was re­port­ed that the in­mate re­fused to obey law­ful in­struc­tions to re­turn to his cell. He be­came vi­o­lent and un­con­trol­lable,” it said.

“The of­fi­cer at­tempt­ed to have the in­mate man­age his emo­tions and re­turn to the cell. How­ev­er, the of­fi­cer was as­sault­ed. The of­fi­cer had no choice but to de­fend him­self and oth­er in­mates in the vicin­i­ty chose this in­ci­dent to ral­ly around, caus­ing a fra­cas,” it added.

How­ev­er, lawyers for three of the in­jured pris­on­ers gave an al­ter­na­tive ver­sion in a law­suit over them be­ing trans­ferred to oth­er prison fa­cil­i­ties af­ter be­ing dis­charged from hos­pi­tal.

They claimed prison of­fi­cers were phys­i­cal­ly abus­ing a Mus­lim pris­on­er with epilep­sy and an­oth­er Mus­lim pris­on­er ob­ject­ed, lead­ing to both of them be­ing beat­en. They claimed the men ran in­to a cell which con­tained oth­er pris­on­ers and they too were at­tacked by the prison of­fi­cers.

On Thurs­day, Jus­tice Mar­garet Mo­hammed held a hear­ing in which Ayok­ie Charles, Ker­ry Valenti­no and Ray Paul Julien were pre­sent­ed be­fore the court, al­beit vir­tu­al­ly from video con­fer­enc­ing fa­cil­i­ties at the Re­mand Yard fa­cil­i­ty at the Gold­en Grove State Prison and the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison in Arou­ca.

All three men had vis­i­ble signs of the in­juries they sus­tained in the in­ci­dent, in­clud­ing blood-stained cloth­ing. All three had ban­dages to their heads, while two had casts on one of their arms. Julien al­so had a bro­ken leg, as he sat in a wheel­chair while gri­mac­ing through­out the hear­ing.

Their habeas cor­pus writ was even­tu­al­ly dis­missed, as Jus­tice Mo­hammed ruled that their trans­fers were law­ful.

This was the sec­ond death of a pris­on­er who was tak­en for treat­ment at a health fa­cil­i­ty in un­der a year.

In Oc­to­ber last year, 22-year-old Em­manuel Joseph died short­ly af­ter be­ing re­mand­ed at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in Ari­ma.

He was charged with the at­tempt­ed mur­der of Deputy Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Sher­wyn Bruce and his body­guard.

While the Prison Ser­vice ini­tial­ly claimed he was pro­nounced dead at hos­pi­tal af­ter com­plain­ing about chest pains, a post-mortem list­ed his cause of death as shock and haem­or­rhage, poly­trau­ma and blunt force trau­ma in­juries “all over his body”.

His au­top­sy was ob­served by for­mer State pathol­o­gist Dr Hughvon Des Vi­gnes, who was re­tained by the fam­i­ly to pro­vide a sec­ond opin­ion.

Dr Des Vi­gnes’ par­tic­i­pa­tion was on­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed af­ter the fam­i­ly’s lawyers, in­clud­ing Romero, ob­tained an ex-parte in­junc­tion against the T&T Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre act­ing Di­rec­tor Der­rick Sankar, stop­ping him and his of­fi­cials from block­ing the move.

No one has been charged in re­la­tion to Joseph’s death.