SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Melis­sia Thomas' sep­a­ra­tion from her chil­dren wor­ries and pains her more than the mur­der charge that hangs over her head.

When Thomas was joint­ly charged with her now 52-year-old hus­band, Stam­lin Thomas, for mur­der in 2011, her life seemed to fall apart as she ag­o­nised over leav­ing her sev­en young chil­dren–six sons and a daugh­ter–be­hind with­out their par­ents to nur­ture and raise them.

At that time, Thomas' youngest child was an 11-month-old ba­by and her old­est had just turned 11 years.

They were her pride and joy who need­ed a par­ent's love, com­fort, care and guid­ance which she was un­able to give them af­ter she was in­car­cer­at­ed at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP), Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca, 12 years ago. It has been more than a decade since Thomas has been wait­ing for a date in the High Court to have her mat­ter heard.

Thomas, 42, ad­mit­ted the great­est pun­ish­ment is be­ing sep­a­rat­ed from her chil­dren.

"Not hav­ing my chil­dren around...noth­ing pains me more," a tear­ful Thomas told the Sun­day Guardian dur­ing a re­cent in­ter­view at the MSP.

"I left them at a very ear­ly age. The old­est was just 11 years. My last child and on­ly daugh­ter was a ba­by...11 months old. That is some­thing that is hard to come to terms with be­cause I was not there with them for their grow­ing-up years."

Thomas re­called leav­ing her chil­dren in the care of a rel­a­tive as she was tak­en to jail.

"You al­so wor­ry how vul­ner­a­ble your chil­dren will be to so­ci­ety be­cause you don't know what is go­ing to hap­pen to them. I have to ad­mit it was painful."

The sep­a­ra­tion, Thomas said, tore her to pieces and left a deep void in her life.

Thomas missed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to see her daugh­ter take her first step and grad­u­ate from pri­ma­ry school. She did not get to see her boys bring home their re­port cards nor was she there to nur­ture them when they fell sick.

She imag­ined her chil­dren fac­ing de­pres­sion and emo­tion­al tur­moil, in­clud­ing aban­don­ment.

"It was heart-wrench­ing. It still is. It has been a big chal­lenge, but God knows best."

Fast track 12 years lat­er, Thomas said her chil­dren's lives have been shat­tered by their par­ents' im­pris­on­ment.

 The fam­i­ly had lived at Sobo Vil­lage, La Brea. They now live in dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tions. "Our fam­i­ly has been torn apart...frac­tured," Thomas cried.

Thomas' daugh­ter, who en­tered Form One last Sep­tem­ber, lives with one of her great-aunts.

"My fourth son who is 18 and did not fin­ish school is rent­ing with his girl­friend in St Croix. One son stays with my sis­ter. My last son is liv­ing with one of my un­cles and my three old­er sons moved in­to a house in Moru­ga that was once oc­cu­pied by my grand­moth­er. They have been try­ing to fix up the place."

In the Women's Prison, Thomas said she en­rolled in nu­mer­ous pro­grammes and at­tend­ed sev­er­al cours­es to keep her mind oc­cu­pied and pass time.

"Hon­est­ly, I have been try­ing to adapt as best as I can to make life more man­age­able for me. The on­ly thing I could have done in prison was to make a bet­ter life for my­self."

Thomas al­so at­tend­ed class­es with­in the prison walls where she ob­tained three CXC pass­es–Maths, Eng­lish and Hu­man and So­cial Bi­ol­o­gy.

This was one of her life­long dreams.

Ad­mit­ting that she dropped out of Moru­ga Com­pos­ite School at the age of 16 af­ter the death of her moth­er, Thomas said she was proud of her ac­com­plish­ments and has come a long way.

"I want­ed to show my chil­dren that even though I am in­side here great things can hap­pen."

Thomas be­came a mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er, role mod­el, men­tor and ex­em­plar to her fel­low in­mates.

She al­so lec­tures the pub­lic about mak­ing the right choic­es in life.

One of the ben­e­fits of speak­ing on pub­lic plat­forms, Thomas said, is be­ing able to see her chil­dren out­side of prison.

"Ac­cord­ing to the area I am go­ing to speak, if my chil­dren are close by I would be able to see them. They could al­so see how I am pro­gress­ing from one stage to an­oth­er."

Thomas al­so boast­ed of her writ­ing and singing skills which earned her the women's prison Ca­lyp­so Monarch ti­tle for sev­en con­sec­u­tive years.

This year, Thomas opt­ed not to par­tic­i­pate in the com­pe­ti­tion to al­low her fel­low in­mates an op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case their tal­ents.

Through the prison's An­gel Tree pro­gramme, Thomas got an op­por­tu­ni­ty to spend time with her chil­dren last year.

This pro­gramme al­lows in­car­cer­at­ed moth­ers to main­tain their re­la­tion­ship with their chil­dren.

Last No­vem­ber, Thomas, and her hus­band were al­so al­lowed to have a Christ­mas pic­nic with their chil­dren in a nor­malised en­vi­ron­ment.

They were among 56 in­mates who were per­mit­ted to spend time with their fam­i­lies for the fes­tive sea­son.

The chil­dren cooked a meal and dined with their par­ents for three hours.

Thomas said it was an emo­tion­al mo­ment for her fam­i­ly.

"I have to give thanks to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar who al­lows us to see our chil­dren a lit­tle more of­ten."

For Thomas, say­ing good­bye at these gath­er­ings are nev­er easy.

"Chil­dren will re­act to their par­ents the on­ly way they know how...to hold on to them and ask when are you com­ing home." Thomas said her on­ly re­sponse would be "soon".

She has no faith in the ju­di­cial sys­tem. Thomas and her hus­band are re­mand pris­on­ers who have been wait­ing years for a tri­al date.

"The ju­di­cial sys­tem has nev­er worked for me. And it is not work­ing for any­body. Every day peo­ple are com­ing in­to prison charged with mur­der, and we are not see­ing peo­ple shuf­fling out."

She ad­mit­ted to know­ing pris­on­ers in re­mand for 18-plus years await­ing High Court dates and tri­als.

"That is the biggest chal­lenge we have. Our fight is not with the prison sys­tem, our fight is with the ju­di­cial sys­tem be­cause they just throw peo­ple in here, and we are lost to so­ci­ety."

Thomas said she has ap­plied for an MSI (max­i­mum se­cu­ri­ty in­di­ca­tion). An MSI is a vol­un­tary process with strict ad­her­ence to due process to en­sure that jus­tice is served in a more ef­fi­cient man­ner re­sult­ing in a re­duced back­log.

In­mates are not pres­sured to plead guilty but will be giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty at a hear­ing at which a judge gives an ac­cused per­son an in­di­ca­tion of the max­i­mum sen­tence he/she would face if that per­son were to plead guilty.

"I re­al­ly ven­tured in­to that (MSI) be­cause I have been wait­ing since 2013 to ac­quire a High Court date."

Every day seems like an eter­ni­ty for Thomas.

De­scrib­ing the wheels of jus­tice as frus­trat­ing, Thomas said "If you are not men­tal­ly strong you would break in­side this place. You can be­come what so­ci­ety thinks of you...you are brand­ed a men­ace. You are stig­ma­tised whether you are guilty or not."

Thomas, who did not re­veal the de­tails of the mat­ter in which she was charged, said you are judged by an un­for­giv­ing and un­car­ing so­ci­ety.

Clutch­ing her chest as tears streamed down her face, she con­stant­ly main­tained her in­no­cence.

"I was home with my chil­dren. At the end of the day, no­body is sup­posed to take any­one's life and I didn't take any­body's life."

In the heat of anger, Thomas said, some peo­ple have no rea­son­ing and are un­able to con­trol their tem­per.

Thomas said that her on­ly cop­ing mech­a­nism was God.

Her great­est wish is to re­unite with her chil­dren and re­build her fam­i­ly.

The Sun­day Guardian called In­spec­tor of Pris­ons Cedric Nep­tune sev­er­al times on his cell­phone to get a re­sponse on Thomas' mat­ter, but the calls went unan­swered.

He al­so did not re­spond to a text mes­sage.

BOX sep­a­rate­ly

The Privy Coun­cil rul­ing

Last Ju­ly, the Court of Ap­peal’s land­mark judg­ment on the abil­i­ty of judges to con­sid­er bail for peo­ple charged with mur­der was up­held by the Privy Coun­cil.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment, five Law Lords of the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil re­ject­ed all the grounds raised by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice as they up­held the de­ci­sion of Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and his two col­leagues from the Court of Ap­peal in the con­sti­tu­tion­al case brought by for­mer mur­der ac­cused Ak­ili Charles.

Lord Nicholas Ham­blen, who de­liv­ered the board’s de­ci­sion, ruled that al­though the Bail Act was passed by a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty of Par­lia­ment in 1994, it did not rea­son­ably jus­ti­fy the in­fringe­ment of cit­i­zens’ con­sti­tu­tion­al rights in re­la­tion to ap­ply­ing for bail.

"Bear­ing in mind that less in­tru­sive mea­sures could have been used, the Board nev­er­the­less con­sid­ers that in all the cir­cum­stances of the present case, the in­ter­est of the com­mu­ni­ty as ex­pressed through the will of Par­lia­ment is out­weighed by the very se­vere con­se­quences of the im­po­si­tion of a blan­ket pro­hi­bi­tion of bail and that a fair bal­ance has not been struck," Lord Ham­blen said.

He said the dis­pro­por­tion­al­i­ty of the blan­ket pro­hi­bi­tion against con­sid­er­ing bail for mur­der was es­pe­cial­ly high­light­ed by what tran­spired in Charles’ case.

Be­fore the judg­ment was up­held, then at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi said there were more than 1,200 pris­on­ers on re­mand for mur­der, mak­ing up al­most half of those cur­rent­ly held in T&T's no­to­ri­ous­ly over­crowd­ed re­mand fa­cil­i­ty.

The num­ber of pris­on­ers on re­mand ex­posed the dys­func­tion­al crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem where ac­cused peo­ple spend be­tween five and 15 years for their cas­es to go be­fore a judge and ju­ry.

Jus­tice is fur­ther ag­gra­vat­ed by a prison sys­tem filled to the brim with dis­con­tent and anger.

One of the con­cerns raised was that the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DDP) of­fice was op­er­at­ing with a com­ple­ment of 46 at­tor­neys which rep­re­sent­ed one-third of the 137 at­tor­neys Cab­i­net had ap­proved for the DPP's of­fice.

Charles wait­ed nine years in an over­crowd­ed cell in Port-of-Spain be­fore the court freed him of the mur­der charge. He was killed at his Diego Mar­tin home last Ju­ly.