Director cites Absenteeism among the Problems of Bordelais

A shortage of officers has been blamed for the recent assault of a female inmate by three males at the Bordelais Correctional Facility. BCF director Hilary Herman made the disclosure in an interview with the STAR on Tuesday. On evening shifts, Herman indicated, there are normally nine officers present to take responsibility for the nine units of the facility. On the night of the incident, five officers were on duty, according to Herman. He recalled that officers weren’t stationed at any one place; instead they patrolled the facility. There ought to have been an officer near the young female at all times but that was not the case on the night in question.  Last week the victim’s mother revealed her daughter told her she had been raped. Medical results have not been released.  

Herman also said officers that were expected at work failed to show up. It remains unclear what action, if any, will be taken against them. Said the director: “I have to look at the individuals who weren’t there to see why they were absent, did they call in sick, and so on.” He expects to have answers to the many pending questions by early next week.

Herman is no newcomer to Bordelais. He served there 2003-2008 and 2009-2015. In all that time, he says, staff shortage had been a constant problem, as is absenteeism. He lamented: “As the director of corrections, I don’t have disciplinary authority. All disciplinary matters go to the Public Service Commission and it takes forever before matters are processed.”   

Meanwhile the female inmate continues to be held in the same cell but is more closely monitored, by official account. She’d be worse off placed in any other location, Herman said. Placing her at the female unit that houses sentenced and remanded adult females would not be appropriate; the inmate at the centre of the incident is not yet an adult.

Meanwhile, police confirmed on Tuesday that the matter is “under investigation”, as are scores of other crime incidents, not least of all the police shooting of 17-year-old Arnold Joseph, and the case of Kimberly De Leon, who was shot in her home last October.   

Addressing reporters at a press briefing, CPL Ann Joseph stated: “What I can say is that a report was referred to us on October 14 in relation to that incident. Due to the nature of the report, the investigation, I can say, is of a sexual nature and that is all that I can say due to the nature of the report.”