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.