SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Mere days af­ter Sharon Archer (name was changed to pro­tect her iden­ti­ty) was re­mand­ed at the Women’s Prison in Arou­ca on a mur­der charge in May 2018, her moth­er, Melis­sa Park­er (not her re­al name), re­ceived a call from an anony­mous per­son ask­ing if she want­ed to com­mu­ni­cate with her daugh­ter be­hind bars.

The caller told Park­er that if she pur­chased a cell­phone and SIM card, he could have them smug­gled in­to the prison for Archer. The fee to get the phone to Archer was $3,500.

Park­er agreed to the pay­ment, stat­ing that she was des­per­ate to speak to her daugh­ter. For six years, Archer, 31, used the Sam­sung phone in jail un­til she was re­cent­ly am­bushed and beat­en by in­mates who re­trieved the mo­bile de­vice, which was hand­ed over to a fe­male prison of­fi­cer.

The use of cell­phones by in­mates is pro­hib­it­ed in jail. Cell phone jam­mers are used to block sig­nals from cell­phones with­in the prison.

The beat­ing re­cent­ly prompt­ed Archer’s at­tor­ney to send act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Car­los Cor­raspe a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter.

Act­ing Deputy Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er Elvin Scant­er­bury has since launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter. This was con­firmed to the Sun­day Guardian on Thurs­day by Marisa Alexan­der, pris­ons com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist.

In a tell-it-all in­ter­view on Tues­day, Park­er, 56, said she be­lieved her daugh­ter was tar­get­ed for the phone be­cause she was en­vied for her out­spo­ken­ness.

“The way they (prison of­fi­cers) used the in­mates to get the phone is what I don’t agree with. The said in­mates that they used, they have phones. The is­sue is not how they get the phone, you know. The is­sue is how many of them have phones in jail,” Park­er said.

Smug­gling the cell­phone in­to jail

Park­er re­called that short­ly af­ter her daugh­ter’s im­pris­on­ment, an un­known male called about get­ting the phone for Archer at a cost.

“I was asked if I would like to get a cell­phone for my daugh­ter, so I would be able to keep in con­tact with her,” Park­er be­gan ex­plain­ing.

“There were so many hor­ror sto­ries I heard in prison it ter­ri­fied me. I just want­ed to know that my daugh­ter was safe and what was go­ing on with her. The phone was a mech­a­nism for me to com­mu­ni­cate with her, to keep her fo­cused to do things to help her re­ha­bil­i­tate her­self.”

At that time, Park­er said, Archer’s five-year-old daugh­ter was al­so go­ing through a dif­fi­cult time af­ter be­ing sep­a­rat­ed from her moth­er. The lit­tle girl was taunt­ed and teased by her class­mates about her moth­er be­ing a mur­der­er.

“It was heart­break­ing when she came home from school,” Park­er said.

Af­ter con­sid­er­ing all this, Park­er jumped at the op­por­tu­ni­ty. The caller gave Park­er spe­cif­ic in­struc­tions on where to buy the phone and its ac­ces­sories and who she should ask for at the es­tab­lish­ments.

Us­ing an alias, Park­er pur­chased the cell­phone in a Cunu­pia store for $1,700. “No ID was re­quired,” she said. An un­reg­is­tered SIM card was bought for $60 at a store in Curepe, which no longer ex­ists.

Park­er said the items had to be placed in “cling wrap” to be col­lect­ed by a woman and a child in an Ari­ma restau­rant at a set time and date. “I paid the woman $3,500. I had so many dif­fer­ent feel­ings be­cause I felt I might get robbed be­cause I don’t know who I gave the mon­ey to if any­thing hap­pened, and I can’t make a re­port to the po­lice be­cause I don’t know the per­son,” Park­er said.

It was a gam­ble Park­er took. But her daugh­ter got the phone.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Park­er is al­so al­lowed by the pris­ons ad­min­is­tra­tion to speak to her daugh­ter for 15 min­utes twice week­ly, ei­ther in per­son or vir­tu­al­ly.

Late night calls

Four days af­ter pay­ing the per­son to drop off the phone, Park­er, a moth­er of two, re­ceived a call from Archer. It brought a sense of re­lief to Park­er know­ing that her daugh­ter was okay. The calls or text mes­sages be­came a rou­tine.

“My daugh­ter nor­mal­ly calls me late at night, we talk briefly for un­der ten min­utes. If she is un­able to call, she would text. All I was in­ter­est­ed in was to hear her voice.”

Those calls came to an end on May 16 when five fe­male pris­on­ers am­bushed Archer in her cell while she was on the phone.

Archer was pinned to the ground and kicked in her face, neck, back and sides, and the phone tak­en from her.

“That night an in­mate called me to say that my daugh­ter was bad­ly beat­en. I went in­to a to­tal tail­spin be­cause I didn’t know why she was beat­en and who beat her.”

Park­er said she was an­gry be­cause her daugh­ter was not tak­en to the hos­pi­tal for ex­am­i­na­tion but to the in­fir­mary to pro­vide a state­ment. She went to the pris­ons ad­min­is­tra­tion where she lodged a com­plaint and was ad­vised to email a re­port.

Park­er said she was al­so cau­tioned by a se­nior prison of­fi­cer dur­ing the com­plaint that she could be ar­rest­ed for sup­ply­ing and speak­ing to Archer on the il­le­gal cell­phone.

Bruised and swollen

 “When I saw my daugh­ter the fol­low­ing day her face was swollen, and she was in im­mense pain from the in­juries sus­tained. There were al­so scratch­es on her arms and neck,” Park­er said.

Her com­plaint led to Archer re­ceiv­ing painkillers and an ice pack to soothe the bruis­es. Al­most a month lat­er, Archer was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex for an X-ray.

Park­er said two days be­fore the at­tack, her daugh­ter was ac­cused of hav­ing a re­la­tion­ship with a fe­male in­mate. “That fe­male pris­on­er was moved from the cell.” Then ru­mours start­ed cir­cu­lat­ing that Archer was sex­u­al­ly in­volved with a male pris­on­er.

“They al­so ac­cused her of be­ing a gang mem­ber. It took them six years to re­alise that she is af­fil­i­at­ed with a gang. They even men­tioned that I put the of­fi­cer’s (who was giv­en the phone by the in­mates) name on a bul­let.”

Park­er said her daugh­ter nev­er found her­self in trou­ble while in prison and at no time be­fore was she brand­ed a gang mem­ber.

“Will the prison take a gang mem­ber and put them to work in the prison’s ra­dio sta­tion? In my book, they are look­ing for ex­cus­es now to cov­er up what hap­pened?”

This re­porter vis­it­ed Archer on June 21 in prison where she ad­mit­ted be­ing scared for her life. In the pres­ence of a fe­male prison of­fi­cer, Archer, who was giv­en five min­utes of speak­ing time, said “I am re­al­ly afraid. I can’t sleep at night.”

Mut­ter­ing un­der her breath, she ad­mit­ted that a male of­fi­cer, whose name she did not re­veal, gave her the phone. Asked if she was the on­ly in­mate who had a phone in her pos­ses­sion, she replied, “I think the ques­tion you should ask is who doesn’t have phones in here.”

She said the women who in­flict­ed the blows al­so use cell­phones. “It’s a com­mon prac­tice. The in­mates would look out for one an­oth­er when the phones are in use to avoid be­ing caught.”

Archer is cur­rent­ly await­ing a tri­al date. In 2021, con­vict­ed in­mate Steve Mc Gilvery was charged for the il­le­gal use of a cell­phone in the prison. In Mc Gilvery’s case, he used the phone to make a video that went vi­ral.

On Wednes­day, the Sun­day Guardian reached out to then act­ing pris­ons com­mis­sion­er De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar un­der whose tenure the beat­ing oc­curred. Ra­moutar, who re­tired ear­li­er this month, said he was no longer in the ser­vice and could not com­ment on the in­ci­dent.