Whistle­blow­er Ker­ri-Ann Leon Sing, who came for­ward with in­for­ma­tion in an ex­clu­sive Guardian Me­dia in­ves­ti­ga­tion that sev­er­al chil­dren at the Cou­va Chil­dren’s Home and Cri­sis Nurs­ery were al­leged­ly abused by an old­er res­i­dent, has been fired. 

Board chair­man, Bev­er­ly John, who was sent on leave fol­low­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to is­sues raised by Leon Sing, was re­in­stat­ed. 

Out of four care­givers who raised an alarm about the abuse, three no longer work at the shel­ter.

Leon Sing, the home’s for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tor, re­ceived of­fi­cial no­tice of her dis­missal in a Ju­ly 22 let­ter from the board. Leon Sing was ac­cused of “se­ri­ous vi­o­la­tions of em­ploy­ment.”

“On or about the 20th May 2024, you ap­peared on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion dis­cussing dif­fer­ent el­e­ments of the al­le­ga­tions made by your­self, oth­er em­ploy­ees of the Home, and sup­pos­ed­ly res­i­dents of the Home. The broad­cast al­so fea­tured pho­tos and footage of the res­i­dents and showed sen­si­tive de­tails about the chil­dren and ex­cerpts of an au­dio which were at­tached to an in­ci­dent re­port sub­mit­ted by you to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty.

“On 15th Ju­ly 2024, we wrote you re­quest­ing that you re­spond in writ­ing to show cause why we should not take dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion against you, up to and in­clud­ing dis­missal and that such a re­sponse to reach us…We here­by in­form you that ef­fec­tive Ju­ly 22nd 2024 your em­ploy­ment with CCHCN has been ter­mi­nat­ed,” the let­ter, signed by Di­rec­tor Li­nus Rogers, stat­ed.

In a What­sApp ex­change with Guardian Me­dia about her dis­missal, Leon Sing said, “It is what I ex­pect­ed. I was hop­ing that the board of di­rec­tors would have sur­prised me with their ac­tions and they haven’t.”

On Sep­tem­ber 12, the board of the Home again wrote to Leon Sing to in­form that John was re­in­stat­ed.

“The five em­ploy­ees had lit­tle or no stand­ing for a vote of ‘no con­fi­dence’ in the role of Bev­er­ly John as Chair­man of the Board of Di­rec­tors of CCHCN…There was lit­tle or no ev­i­dence in the facts sub­mit­ted to sup­port the con­sid­er­a­tion of ‘No Con­fi­dence.’

Ac­cord­ing to the board, the al­le­ga­tions made re­vealed sev­er­al op­er­a­tional gaps which the board has been ad­dress­ing. 

“The es­tab­lish­ment of sys­tems to man­age the stock in­ven­to­ry to iden­ti­fy and re­move from the in­ven­to­ry ex­pired stock with pri­or­i­ty on ed­i­ble items,” was one of the gaps iden­ti­fied in the let­ter.

In a May 16 re­sponse to ques­tions the home pre­vi­ous­ly said “All food used at the Home is safe for use. The res­i­dents re­ceive fresh food and the Home is prop­er­ly stocked with food.”

The Sep­tem­ber let­ter, from the board, al­so claimed the roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties among staff mem­bers would be re­viewed, and that all prac­tices, pro­ce­dures, stan­dards and guide­lines would be en­forced.

“The board takes note of the sig­nif­i­cant neg­a­tive im­pact the al­le­ga­tions made have had on its rep­u­ta­tion, sta­tus, sup­port, stake­hold­ers and res­i­dents…

“The Board is com­mit­ted to ad­dress­ing iden­ti­fied short­com­ings, es­pe­cial­ly with re­gards to es­tab­lished prac­tices and pro­ce­dures and has ad­vised the re­main­ing staff that non-ad­her­ence and non-es­ca­la­tion of breach­es will not be tol­er­at­ed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect,” the cor­re­spon­dence to Leon Sing added.

In May, Leon Sing and oth­er care­givers, who asked not to be named, claimed that sev­er­al chil­dren of the home and even two dogs had been sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed by a mi­nor. 

The whistle­blow­ers al­so claimed that at­tempts to have the child trans­ferred were ini­tial­ly blocked by su­pe­ri­ors. 

Be­tween 2018 and 2024, there were 25 in­ci­dents of sex­u­al­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour by the al­leged per­pe­tra­tor against 11 chil­dren.

The sex­u­al in­ci­dents in­clud­ed pok­ing chil­dren’s pri­vate ar­eas with ob­jects, in­ap­pro­pri­ate touch­ing, sneak­ing in­to the bath­room while an­oth­er child was bathing, co­erc­ing a child in­to bed, en­ter­ing an­oth­er child’s bed, rub­bing gen­i­tals on an­oth­er child and fondling the pri­vate ar­eas of the home’s pets. 

The TTPS Child Pro­tec­tion Unit sub­se­quent­ly re­moved three res­i­dents from the home—the al­leged per­pe­tra­tor and two of the abused chil­dren. The min­is­ter said the mat­ter was al­so sent to the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go for their im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion.

Af­ter the whistle­blow­er went pub­lic with her con­cerns, Gen­der Min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster Roy said she re­spond­ed prompt­ly to the re­ports. The min­is­ter said on May 13, 2024, she re­ceived an email with re­ports of abuse at the fa­cil­i­ty.

Less than two weeks af­ter Guardian Me­dia’s in­ves­tiga­tive re­port was pub­lished, Leon Sing was sus­pend­ed by the home.