An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The home of a med­ical pro­fes­sion­al in Val­sayn North, Trinidad, was in­vad­ed by sev­en ban­dits on Mon­day af­ter­noon. The own­er, her son and a fe­male em­ploy­ee en­dured an hour of ter­ror and suf­fer­ing af­ter the phone lines were cut, and they were tied up and robbed of cash, jew­ellery, al­co­hol and oth­er valu­ables.

Some res­i­dents, who said a gang was op­er­at­ing in the area, are now rush­ing to strength­en se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures at their homes af­ter the com­mu­ni­ty was rocked by the in­ci­dent.

Po­lice said at 1.45 pm, the home­own­er and her fam­i­ly lost thou­sands of dol­lars worth of items from their heav­i­ly for­ti­fied home.

Al­low­ing Guardian Me­dia in­to her home on the con­di­tion that nei­ther her name nor ad­dress were pub­lished, the trau­ma­tised home­own­er and busi­ness­woman re­called com­ing face-to-face with an armed, masked man in her bed­room. The still trau­ma­tised woman ap­peared brave as she clasped her hands and slow­ly re­count­ed the events.

She de­scribed the first ban­dit as hav­ing “shifty eyes.” He said to her, “Moms, this is a hold-up. I have come for your jew­els and your mon­ey.’”

Ad­mit­ting she was dis­ori­ent­ed as she had been on the verge of falling asleep and won­dered if she was dream­ing, the vic­tim added, “It was re­al­i­ty be­cause he said to me, ‘Get off the bed and show me where the mon­ey is’.”

She said she had some cash at home which was to be used to pay work­ers.

“I showed it to him, which he took. He went through all my cab­i­net draw­ers, and when he didn’t find any­thing more, he said, ‘Now, I want the jew­ellery’.”

Point­ing him to where she kept the valu­ables, she said he emp­tied box­es and draw­ers, leav­ing items scat­tered and cloth­ing strewn on the floor and bed. Re­veal­ing she was dis­tressed as her per­son­al sanc­tu­ary had been in­vad­ed by the sus­pects, the busi­ness­woman said af­ter the ban­dit was done in her room, she was tak­en to her son’s bed­room, where she found him bound and gagged.

In his pres­ence, she was asked, “Where is your safe?”

Point­ing to where it was, she told the ban­dit it had been years since it had been used and that the cor­rod­ed bat­ter­ies were a tes­ta­ment to this.

Af­ter in­di­cat­ing she could not open it, the armed man looked at the woman and threat­ened, “Do you want me to cut your fin­gers off?”

The woman said al­though she was scared for her life, she looked him straight in the eye and said, “Maybe one day you may want me to help you, and it might be too late.”

Al­though he re­coiled some­what at her re­ply, she said it did not de­ter the ban­dit from search­ing for more jew­ellery.

While they were be­ing man­han­dled by three masked men, at least four oth­ers were in the house search­ing the li­brary, liv­ing room, and kitchen, from where they re­moved a quan­ti­ty of al­co­hol.

The ban­dit and his col­leagues then chucked the woman and her fe­male work­er in one bed­room. The men then dragged her son to the main bed­room, which she said was “the most ter­ri­fy­ing point” be­cause she did not know what they were do­ing to her son.

“They said, ‘If you not go­ing to do it, we will have to kid­nap him,’ and I begged, please don’t do that.”

Pray­ing the ban­dits did not phys­i­cal­ly harm them, the women even­tu­al­ly de­cid­ed to lock them­selves in the bed­room.

The in­ci­dent fol­lows the rob­bery and mur­der of Eng­lish ac­tress Vis­cel­la Richards in the area back in March. Richards, 79, who lived alone at Val­sayn North, was robbed and killed dur­ing a home in­va­sion. No one has as yet been ar­rest­ed in con­nec­tion with that in­ci­dent.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that at least two Cab­i­net min­is­ters re­side in the area, and se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials have as­sured that fol­low­ing Mon­day’s in­ci­dent, they will be in­creas­ing mo­bile pa­trols.

An of­fi­cer re­vealed, “We will be part­ner­ing with SWAT to of­fer com­fort pa­trols to the res­i­dents. They can rest as­sured that we will be pa­trolling 24/7.”

Re­al­is­ing the men had left as the house be­came qui­et, the two women crept out, un­tied her son, and ran to the neigh­bour’s house af­ter they re­alised the phone lines had been dis­abled and their cell­phones were miss­ing.

The neigh­bour and her work­ers came over im­me­di­ate­ly to help. They con­tact­ed the po­lice and al­so alert­ed the neigh­bour­hood SWAT pa­trol, who ar­rived with­in min­utes.

The house, which has a re­mote-con­trolled gate, is out­fit­ted with an alarm, CCTV cam­eras and has a six-foot-high wall topped with an elec­tric fence.

De­spite these mea­sures, the armed men were able to breach the prop­er­ty via an ad­ja­cent yard.

Yes­ter­day, the vic­tim was busy get­ting locks changed, as the ban­dits left with the house keys.

Alarmed af­ter one of the masked men told her dur­ing the or­deal that they had al­ready killed a woman in Val­sayn, the busi­ness­woman said it had evoked a feel­ing of fear and res­ig­na­tion in her.

“I say this was the last for me,” she added.

“I prayed to the Lord and said you know I have done good in my life­time, and if I have to go now, so be it.”

Asked what items of sen­ti­men­tal val­ue had been tak­en, she said gold bracelet and gold coin which had been part of a chain her moth­er had di­vid­ed among her and her sis­ters.

This, she claimed, was se­cured from the sweat of her moth­er’s work in the cane fields and was the last phys­i­cal item she had left to re­mem­ber her by.

She lament­ed the de­ci­sion by the young men to in­vade her home as she re­flect­ed, “They could do so many dif­fer­ent things with their lives. Why do some­thing like this? It is so trau­mat­ic.”

Bar­ing her soul as a vic­tim and moth­er to the pub­lic, in­clud­ing the ban­dits, she said, “You have hurt me in a way that bruis­es will show, but you can­not feel the pain I feel in­side be­cause I saw my son be­ing dragged in my home, and I can’t even do any­thing.”

Fight­ing back tears, she said, “They don’t know how much hurt I am feel­ing now. They seemed very well groomed in their trade in that every­thing they touched, they took their gar­ment and wiped it.”

The woman, who said she had gone to work yes­ter­day to get out of the ran­sacked house, added that the crime sit­u­a­tion was out of con­trol.

The woman said she felt she had im­ple­ment­ed every­thing she could to se­cure her fam­i­ly, but the ban­dits gained en­try as a re­sult of “one lit­tle weak point in my set-up.”

The prop­er­ty at Val­sayn North is bor­dered by the St Joseph Farm.

The trau­ma­tised woman thanked her neigh­bours for their love and sup­port.

Hav­ing lived in the area for over 40 years, she said it has al­ways been a safe and se­cure neigh­bour­hood, and de­spite what has hap­pened, she does not in­tend to run.

To the sus­pects who robbed her of the sense of se­cu­ri­ty and peace one nor­mal­ly feels in their home, the vic­tim said, “I pray for them too, that maybe they could get an­oth­er way of life. They are healthy, young men.

“I wish you the best of every­thing, but the best of every­thing is not what you are do­ing. That best of every­thing, hurt­ing peo­ple, is not the right way to go. You have a whole life ahead of you. Make some­thing use­ful of that life.

“Make your fam­i­ly proud. Make them hap­py that you have turned your way in­to one that would make you a bet­ter hu­man be­ing. You are young; you can do any­thing you set your mind to, but don’t do this one. Let this crime stop. Let us have our coun­try the way we used to have it.”