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Sunday, February 23, 2025

Prisons to probe claim Hannah’s mom was raped while in custody

by

Carisa Lee
107 days ago
20241108
File: The Women’s Prison, Golden Grove Arouca.

File: The Women’s Prison, Golden Grove Arouca.

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Han­nah Muthu­ra’s fam­i­ly is claim­ing, through their at­tor­ney Stef­fon Boodooram, that their moth­er, Alana, was raped while in cus­tody for her daugh­ter’s mur­der at the Women’s Prison, Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca.

The ma­tri­arch died last week Fri­day while seek­ing treat­ment at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex af­ter falling ill in prison.

Alana and her hus­band, An­drew Mathu­ra, were ar­rest­ed and charged with the mur­der of their daugh­ter Han­nah on Oc­to­ber 16. Han­nah was 18 at the time of her death.

Her re­mains were found buried in the back­yard of the fam­i­ly’s Val­sayn home in March this year af­ter po­lice re­ceived a tip-off from one of her sib­lings. She was last seen alive in June 2017.

Yes­ter­day, the fam­i­ly’s at­tor­ney from Calexus Law Ad­vo­cates and Com­pa­ny claimed Alana, 63, con­fid­ed in one of her daugh­ters while at hos­pi­tal about her or­deal in prison.

But in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons Car­los Cor­raspe said there were no re­ports of such an in­ci­dent hap­pen­ing.

The com­mis­sion­er said on Oc­to­ber 29, Alana was act­ing er­rat­ic and was tak­en to hos­pi­tal. She died in the ear­ly hours of No­vem­ber 1.

“This has not been brought to my at­ten­tion; this is the first time I am be­ing told of this or hear­ing any of this. No re­ports at all came from the Women’s Prison with re­spect to such an al­le­ga­tion dur­ing the time of her in­car­cer­a­tion,” the Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er shared.

Nev­er­the­less, Cor­raspe said the in­ci­dent would be in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Prison Ser­vice.

A copy of Alana’s au­top­sy re­port, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, showed she died from bi­lat­er­al pul­monary throm­bo­sis and deep vein throm­bo­sis.

Mean­while, the at­tor­ney for An­drew Mathu­ra, 65, Tahi­ra Davis Gib­son-Sobers claimed her client was al­so ill with high blood pres­sure. She added that de­spite us­ing med­ica­tion, Han­nah’s fa­ther’s con­di­tion has not im­proved, and he feared he may die in prison as he mourned the death of his wife.

Yes­ter­day, one of the Mathu­ra sib­lings sent an email to me­dia hous­es ask­ing for pri­va­cy.

“This sen­sa­tion­al­i­sa­tion (sic) has al­so led to ex­ces­sive so­cial me­dia cy­ber­bul­ly­ing and anx­i­ety that this con­sis­tent, se­vere re-trau­ma­ti­sa­tion will hap­pen again,” the sib­ling wrote.

The sib­ling said fam­i­ly mem­bers were fac­ing pro­found grief and asked the me­dia and, by ex­ten­sion, the pub­lic to please con­sid­er that a child is one of the sur­vivors.

Foren­sic trau­ma­tol­o­gist Dr Hanif Ben­jamin sym­pa­thised with the sib­lings.

“What we have is a mul­ti­ple lay­er in terms of a bizarre sto­ry in the first in­stance, trau­ma in that re­spect, then trau­ma in an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, then trau­ma in an ar­rest, then the death of a par­ent—that’s a lot for a per­son,” he said.

Child psy­chol­o­gist Sarah Sub­han of Fam­i­ly Tree Psy­cho­log­i­cal Ser­vices said that so­ci­ety has re­act­ed with shock and con­cern about this mat­ter, which is typ­i­cal giv­en the ex­tent of the al­leged cir­cum­stances. The fam­i­ly, how­ev­er, has to deal with the af­ter­math.

“While this is a scary and mys­te­ri­ous sit­u­a­tion, the wel­fare of the fam­i­ly mem­bers who live very re­al lives can be neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed by their un­fil­tered and some­times judge­men­tal re­marks via so­cial me­dia and oth­er do­mains,” she said.

She added that the ex­tent of pri­va­cy the fam­i­ly has been used to may play a role in how they feel about the me­dia’s re­port­ing and how they in­ter­pret the sit­u­a­tion.

Child psy­chother­a­pist Gre­go­ry Isaacs said few peo­ple un­der the bur­den of trau­ma will be giv­en the time and space to heal. He said so­cial me­dia users are un­for­giv­ing and with­out com­pas­sion.

“This is prob­a­bly a good time for all me­dia hous­es to put in place a pol­i­cy that guides the re­port­ing and treat­ment of trau­mat­ic events, es­pe­cial­ly when chil­dren are in­volved,” he said.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the fam­i­ly has not start­ed to make fu­ner­al arrange­ments for Han­nah or her moth­er, Alana. 


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