A/HRC/16/52/Add.3
confirmed the extremely bad reputation of this police station. The Special Rapporteur
strongly urges the Government to take disciplinary measures against Superintendent Hewitt
Delroy for having obstructed and aggressively threatened the Special Rapporteur and his
team.
66.
Ricardo Livingston Palmer, aged 25, had been threatened to death by the police.
He started crying and begged the Special Rapporteur to help him. He was so scared that he
was shaking. There had been trouble with the police in his community for some days, since
the police had reportedly killed a man a few days before. The people had created a road
block to prevent police from entering the day after, but they came and started shooting. He
was part of the crowd. The day of the arrest, he saw the police at noon and ran to another
community. He entered a random house to hide. Police circled the house and the woman at
the house went out screaming and fearing for her life, leaving him alone inside. The police
went in and took him out while he begged not to be killed. They put him in a van together
with ten officers. He was beaten on the face and on the mouth. He was then taken to Hunt’s
Bay, where he had not been beaten, but questioned about his origin and possession of a gun.
The station record included Mr. Palmer’s allegation that police officers had beaten him on
both of his eyes and mouth. An additional comment indicated that there were no visible
signs of assault anywhere in his body.
67.
As the police officers maintained that Mr. Palmer was not in police custody, the
Special Rapporteur demanded that he be released. After discussing for a long time, he was
finally allowed to leave with his family, who had gone to the station to pick him up.
Fort Augusta Adult and Juvenile Correctional Centre
Visited on 16 February 2010
General information
68.
The Special Rapporteur was received by Superintendent Reuben Kelly and
Superintendent Dorothy Hawkin. At the time of the visit, 188 female inmates, including 40
girls, were detained. One baby was at the facility with the detained mother.
69.
There were ten dormitories, including three for children in between the adult dorms.
During the day, girls and women were together. Some of the girls were sent to Fort Augusta
for “safe custody” because of unruly behaviour in other homes. Remandees were usually
separated from those convicted, unless there was overcrowding. During the day Fort
Augusta was operated as an open facility, and both the girls and the women attended
classes or workshops (leather craft, hairdressing, computer classes, etc.). Women with
mental disabilities and aggressive behaviour were isolated from other inmates. Isolation for
a maximum of 30 days and no visits were used as means of punishment. However, there
was no register for the punishment cells, and information was only recorded in the dorm
books.
70.
In general, the Special Rapporteur had a fairly good impression of the facility.
However, he was concerned about the fact that girls were detained together with adult
women, in contravention of international standards.
Individual cases
71.
Y. H, 14. She had been detained at Fort Augusta for a year, and had been previously
held in two different places of safety. She had been transferred to Fort Augusta because she
had injured a house mother at Windsor. She had been sentenced to three years detention.
She indicated that she had been beaten in early December 2009. The officers wanted to put
her in a separate dorm, and when she refused and held on to the bed, she was beaten three
34
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