For close to 60 years, the La­dy Ho­choy Home in Co­corite has of­fered a haven for chil­dren with in­tel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ties. Since its open­ing in 1961, the home has been run by the Cor­pus Christi Carmelite Sis­ters. Wide­ly re­gard­ed as one of the bright­est lights in the field of so­cial work, it has pro­vid­ed care for the chil­dren, while cater­ing to their de­vel­op­men­tal needs.

How­ev­er, as this Guardian Me­dia in­ves­tiga­tive re­port will re­veal, there are now some ques­tions that need to be an­swered.

The home of care has al­leged­ly be­come a home of hurt and, ac­cord­ing to whistle­blow­ers, those re­spon­si­ble for the home are fail­ing to act on re­ports of abuse, choos­ing in­stead to sweep them un­der the car­pet. Ac­cord­ing to mul­ti­ple sources, who said they have made nu­mer­ous com­plaints to the in­sti­tu­tion’s man­age­ment as well as the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, not enough is be­ing done to pro­tect the vul­ner­a­ble mi­nors at the home.

The claims of abuse are now be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. As part of the in­quiries, po­lice ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant on the home’s com­pound on Thurs­day morn­ing and the mat­ter was re­ferred to the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit.

Be­fore be­ing sent the pic­tures of al­leged abuse via email by Guardian Me­dia, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty said it had re­ceived com­plaints of phys­i­cal and sex­u­al abuse at the home.

The au­thor­i­ty said it had un­der­tak­en in­ves­ti­ga­tions and that in one in­stance, fol­low­ing a re­port of phys­i­cal abuse, the man­age­ment of the home sus­pend­ed a staff mem­ber and the school was man­dat­ed to send the em­ploy­ee for train­ing. The au­thor­i­ty said a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter was on­go­ing.

Ac­cord­ing to the au­thor­i­ty, it mon­i­tors and eval­u­ates all Chil­dren’s Homes to en­sure com­pli­ance with stan­dards of op­er­a­tion in the pro­vi­sion of care and pro­tec­tion of the chil­dren at their res­i­dences.

Mean­while, a so­cial work­er, as well as oth­er sources, said they have ques­tions about the re­la­tion­ship be­tween a for­mer ex­ec­u­tive of the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and the man­age­ment of the La­dy Ho­choy Home.

Han­iff Ben­jamin, list­ed on his Face­book page and LinkedIn pro­file, is pres­i­dent and CEO at The Cen­tre for Hu­man De­vel­op­ment Group of Com­pa­nies Lim­it­ed. The busi­ness pro­vides psy­cho­log­i­cal, so­cial ser­vice and train­ing, and de­vel­op­ment con­sult­ing.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Ben­jamin about the pic­tures and whether he had a busi­ness re­la­tion­ship with the La­dy Ho­choy Home. He first ad­dressed the com­pa­ny, deny­ing that he has a busi­ness re­la­tion­ship with the home’s man­age­ment.

"No, we have not had pri­vate train­ing with them. They may have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pub­lic train­ing," he said.

He then ad­dressed the pic­tures and ques­tions of abuse, say­ing, "You’d al­so un­der­stand that due to the di­ag­no­sis of these chil­dren, they are prone to self-dam­age."

Guardian Me­dia press­ing for fur­ther in­for­ma­tion said, "But mul­ti­ple whistle­blow­ers, and even par­ents of some of the chil­dren, claim there is abuse tak­ing place...They sep­a­rate­ly sup­port claims."

Ben­jamin, via What­sApp, lat­er re­spond­ed, "Ok. I would love if you can get them to reach me."

Ben­jamin's term in of­fice as chair­man of the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty came to an end re­cent­ly.

The La­dy Ho­choy Home: We don't know about abuse

Un­aware of the pic­tures that Guardian Me­dia re­ceived and for­ward­ed to the po­lice, the prin­ci­pal of the La­dy Ho­choy Vo­ca­tion­al Home, Sis­ter Bertill Dean, claimed that while the sit­u­a­tion at the school was very dif­fi­cult, there was no phys­i­cal abuse tak­ing place.

"Phys­i­cal abuse? Not re­al­ly. Long time we used to beat chil­dren. That doesn’t hap­pen re­al­ly, since they changed the rules/law. We have prob­lems with chil­dren, but we don’t know about abuse," Dean said in a tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion.

"I did have one case where a staff mem­ber hit a child, but she was sus­pend­ed for two weeks," she added.

De­spite sev­er­al peo­ple com­ing for­ward with in­for­ma­tion to Guardian Me­dia, the prin­ci­pal said there was one dis­grun­tled staff mem­ber who is mak­ing up sto­ries to get oth­er staff mem­bers in trou­ble.

Say­ing oth­er staff mem­bers don’t want to work with that em­ploy­ee, Dean said she doesn’t know what to do with that work­er any­more.

"She went to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty but the au­thor­i­ty didn’t find any­thing," she said.

Phys­i­cal, emo­tion­al, sex­u­al abuse?

Those at the fa­cil­i­ty, most un­der the age of 18, have lit­tle choice but to trust staff. But for some, that trust is seem­ing­ly be­ing abused. Vic­tims of al­leged phys­i­cal, men­tal and sex­u­al abuse have been tak­en ad­van­tage of by at least two mem­bers of staff.

In the last 12 months, two stu­dents who were seen in pic­tures pur­port­ed­ly tied to bur­glar proof­ing or chained to bed frames, or with pur­port­ed in­juries, were trans­ferred from the home to the St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal. They were men­tioned in for­mal re­ports against mem­bers of staff.

It has been al­leged that at the fa­cil­i­ty, chil­dren were tasered by a mem­ber of staff and are tied up for hours, even as long as days at a time. One of the sources re­called an in­ci­dent when one of the chil­dren was al­leged­ly se­vere­ly pun­ished for mis­be­hav­iour. Her sto­ry was sup­port­ed by an­oth­er source.

"She tied his hands, with his feet stretched out. When it was time for feed­ing, she didn’t feed him," the per­son re­called.

''I passed near him and he start­ed to cry out, say­ing, 'Aun­ty, I know you love me, could you un­tie me?'"

The em­ploy­ee said she de­cid­ed to give it three hours to see if their col­league would let him go. Three hours lat­er, the child re­mained in the same po­si­tion.

"I re­alised that he wasn’t get­ting any­thing to eat. I took a sand­wich, brought it to his mouth and told him to eat quick­ly. I said to him, don’t let her know that I fed you," the work­er re­called.

The en­raged work­er said that af­ter a while, she cut him loose. But she said this didn’t go down well with oth­er mem­bers of staff, who con­front­ed her. Af­ter mak­ing a re­port to the su­per­vi­sor, the work­er said she was told by her man­ag­er that she was be­com­ing "a thorn in her flesh."

"I could un­der­stand if it is you don’t want to send the per­son home, but you are not deal­ing with it. You are not even send­ing the per­son home for some days. You are not mov­ing the in­di­vid­ual from the child, to pro­tect the child," the source lament­ed.

An­oth­er for­mer em­ploy­ee, who al­so re­signed, said she wit­nessed sev­er­al sim­i­lar in­ci­dents.

"It was over­bear­ing. Some of the staff wouldn’t feed the chil­dren. They would beat the chil­dren. It’s a sad thing be­cause chil­dren can’t speak for them­selves.

"I know the nuns there know, but they just didn’t care. They would say they would talk to the per­son ac­cused, and that’s that,” the source said.

"You will see staff act­ing as if it’s men fight­ing oth­er men, bang­ing chil­dren’s heads against the rail, bang­ing their heads against the bur­glar proof­ing."

Among many in­ci­dents, she re­called a mem­ber of staff punch­ing a child in his mouth for tak­ing too long to re­spond ver­bal­ly. As con­firmed by the home, as well as the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, a mem­ber of staff was sub­se­quent­ly sus­pend­ed for two weeks for al­leged­ly punch­ing a child in her face. That, how­ev­er, was a sep­a­rate in­ci­dent.

Child purportedly tied by both hands to a burglar proof frame.

Sources said that two-week sus­pen­sion was a one-off, adding that most abus­es go un­no­ticed, un­re­port­ed and un­pun­ished.

A source claimed that on an­oth­er oc­ca­sion, she walked in on a staff mem­ber at­tack­ing a child on the floor.

"He was act­ing out be­cause he was be­ing placed in­to a new in­sti­tu­tion. He was not com­fort­able where he was then, and the staff kicked him on the ground," she claimed.

In an­oth­er in­ci­dent, a hun­gry child stole some food be­fore lunch was ready. As ret­ri­bu­tion, a mem­ber of staff made him drink a large quan­ti­ty of wa­ter.

"She gave him a mug of wa­ter for him to drink. He drank the mug of wa­ter and start­ed bring­ing it up one time. Since then, the child has been bring­ing his food up," she said.

There are al­so al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al abuse from chil­dren there as well.

"(Name of the child called) came one day and told me she was in­ter­fer­ing. I said, what hap­pened? He kept re­peat­ing my name and point­ing (to their pri­vate area)," a source said.

Ask­ing the child when the in­ci­dent oc­curred, the source was told that the al­leged abuse took place when the child went to take a bath. The per­son sent a re­port to man­age­ment but in­stead of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion be­ing launched, the child was sent to St Ann’s Hos­pi­tal. He is still there.

"I find the chil­dren are not be­ing heard. They put the chil­dren as if they are liars," the per­son said.

"I wit­nessed a mem­ber of staff bit­ing a child. I wrote a re­port in the re­port book. I went down and I re­port­ed it to man­age­ment. You feel they do any­thing?

"They are pro­tect­ing the staff. They are try­ing to keep their im­age clean, as far as I’m con­cerned," one source claimed.

"If you come with a com­plaint, you should shut up. What­ev­er you see, you should sweep it un­der the car­pet. Say noth­ing and you will be liked," an­oth­er source added.

Asked how they would de­scribe the au­thor­i­ty’s re­sponse to their com­plaints and re­ports, they said, "Neg­a­tive. Neg­a­tive. Neg­a­tive. Neg­a­tive. Neg­a­tive.

"They are wait­ing un­til the chil­dren turn 18 to start some­thing. They pro­long it for as long as they can. By the time they come by, there’s no ev­i­dence–whether it’s a bruise or a cut. They are fail­ing the chil­dren."

A se­nior so­cial work­er, fa­mil­iar with the claims of abuse at the home, al­so be­lieves that the au­thor­i­ty is fail­ing to pro­tect the chil­dren. The per­son said there was a gap in the sys­tem which re­sults in cas­es of sup­posed abuse not be­ing ful­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed prompt­ly.

The role of the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty

The Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, as au­tho­rised un­der the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty Act 2000, has the pow­er to mon­i­tor com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dences, fos­ter homes and nurs­eries, as well as to con­duct pe­ri­od­ic re­views to de­ter­mine their com­pli­ance with such re­quire­ments.

The au­thor­i­ty al­so has ju­ris­dic­tion to in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints from chil­dren, staff, as well as guardians with re­spect to any child who is in the care of a com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dence, fos­ter home or nurs­ery.

Un­der the act, fail­ure to com­ply with re­quired stan­dards and any in­ci­dences of mis­treat­ment of chil­dren in such places may re­sult in the is­sue of re­vo­ca­tion of li­cences un­der the Chil­dren Res­i­dences, Fos­ter Care and Nurs­eries Act.

A Moth­er’s Wish

“If I was in a bet­ter po­si­tion, I would have tak­en him out. I does pray for them chil­dren. All of them,” said An­to­nia, as she cried.

“They not sup­posed to be treat­ed like this. They can’t be tak­ing ad­van­tage of our chil­dren so.”

An­to­nia, whose name has been changed to pro­tect her iden­ti­ty, is a par­ent of a child at the La­dy Ho­choy Home.

At the age of ten, her son ar­rived at the home, trans­ferred from an­oth­er in­sti­tu­tion in west Trinidad.

“It nev­er used to hap­pen to him at a dif­fer­ent home,” she lament­ed.

As she spoke to us, the faint sound of a book’s pages be­ing turned gets fran­ti­cal­ly loud­er.

"I keep a book, you know," she said.

When the abuse be­gan, the moth­er made a promise to those she knew that she’d get jus­tice one day. In the book, she jots down notes about what her son told her about in­ci­dents.

“Why I shouldn’t trust my son? They took ad­van­tage of him,” An­to­nia said, an­gered.

“They told him nasty words. They were cussing him and telling him to mind his own busi­ness. They told him he was ug­ly. The staff mem­ber said she doesn’t like him,” she read ner­vous­ly from the first page.

The next page read, “They beat up his head, bad, bad.”

With­out a doubt, she claimed, there are oth­er chil­dren there be­ing hit, cursed, and even tied up.

“When­ev­er I go to see him at home, he’s sad. I have to get the sto­ries out of him,” An­to­nia said.

A po­lice re­port about phys­i­cal abuse was made by the par­ent at the St James Po­lice Sta­tion, but noth­ing came out of it.

“I tell them every­thing. That they re­al bru­tal­is­ing him and tak­ing ad­van­tage of him,” she said about the re­port.

“I make them and I nev­er hit any of my chil­dren,” An­to­nia said, just be­fore our con­ver­sa­tion end­ed.

Deyals­ingh: There are ac­cept­able and un­ac­cept­able forms of re­straint

Ac­cord­ing to psy­chi­a­trist Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh, while re­strain­ing pa­tients is some­times nec­es­sary, there are ac­cept­able forms of re­strains.

He said phys­i­cal re­strain can in­volve the use of leather straps, for ex­am­ple, to tie a pa­tient to a bed. Asked about ty­ing pa­tients to bur­glar proof­ing and chain­ing them to beds, he re­peat­ed there are "ac­cept­able and un­ac­cept­able" forms of re­straint.

"All these homes should be mon­i­tored. And just as we had cas­es with the geri­atric homes and they weren't mon­i­tored prop­er­ly, all in­sti­tu­tions with pa­tients, old or young, we need prop­er check and bal­ance."

He called for spot checks at homes to make sure they are do­ing the right thing.