Colwyn Harding, 23, who is the latest victim of police brutally, said he will never be comforted by any form of punishment meted out to the police officer who assaulted him.
In an interview from his bed at the Georgetown Public Hospital, Harding told Guyana Times International that he is damaged. “I’ve been damaged, half ah me parts of me body gone… even self he (police officer) deh under close arrest, me ain’t see that in no way compensation because I deh in the hospital shackle to a bed.
“I don’t get to move, I feeling the pain, I does get it most. I does cry when the day come not nobody else. Nobody else doesn’t feel, the hurt,” he said.
Harding noted that his life has come to a standstill and could never return to the way it was before. “I don’t know how he operate like this, he hurt me and now I living in shame…I ga live in shame, not nobody else.
“How I gone feel when everybody making laugh off ah me? I ga walk with this for the rest of me life, people gon talk about it. This never happen to nobody else why it ga happen to me?” the young man asked.
In pain
He said that he is experiencing a lot of pain in his back and abdomen. Harding noted that he had to undergo two surgeries and is expected to do a third in three months’ time.
The young man explained that the two surgeries so far were done to drain out a poisonous substance from his body and set back his damaged organs.
He identified his perpetrator, noting that he does not know the officer but heard someone call him by a name (last name given). Harding stated that he went up to Timehri to stay with a cousin who recently gave birth a few days before the incident, and he never had any problem with anyone in the area.
He said he cannot recall how many police officers were there at the time but noted that it was a packed vehicle that went to the house to inquire about a man known as “Ronnie Clarke”.
Spite
“They come to carry out a search and I ‘llow them cause I know them is police officers after them ain’t find nothing and I get to know that is the other man they looking for and them na find he too, they take out spite on me…
“I ask he what gon happen to me and me girlfriend cause I know we didn’t do nothing. He turn and tell me he ga do a 72 hours for me to find out about me and I tell he do it cause I know I ain’t wanted or nothing like that,” he stated.
The young man said during questioning, the police hit him on his head and he fell unconscious and woke up in the bathroom when the officer threw water on him.
Too emotional to continue the sequence of events, he fast tracked to when he was taken to the Timehri Police Station and described the inhumane conditions he was forced to endure.
“(He) is a real ignorant officer cause he choke me and carry me down the lock up and throw me in a cell, nothing to lie down on, no card board nothing, bare cold concrete and inside de wet with water and I had to sleep right in there… one night, he come into wuk and beat me and buss up me head, left me unconscious in the lock-up.
“That same boy Ronnie Clarke had to turn round and help me in the lock-ups, all them in the lock-up had to help,” he recalled.
Harding explained that he, his girlfriend and two other females who were in the house at the time and they were arrested and falsely charged with assaulting the officer at the Providence Magistrate’s Court.
He noted that he tried to tell persons about what transpired but no one believed him so he quietly went to prison where his health deteriorated.
Inhumane
He disclosed that he was at the Timehri lock-ups for five days and in prison for two weeks before he was taken to get proper medical treatment.
“I take-in in prison and start get worse… I go in prison actually bruk up, my foot was swollen my hand was swollen… I start vomiting green and them prisoners start say ‘like this man gone dead in hay’ and they call for the officers them and then they take me down to the infirmary and send me the hospital.
“I was to come back but they never bring me back and the medics giving me pain tablets every day. Then I take-in again and get admit to the infirmary and they left me there.
“A night I get up and try to go to the toilet and I start vomiting and I fall down in the toilet and I start bleed and after they come and see blood all over the toilet, they decide to take me to the hospital.
“When I come to the hospital and the doctor check me, he tell them that I ga do surgery right away,” Harding recounted.
The young man said he did not tell his family members about the brutal ordeal he endured at the time because he was somewhat ashamed, but after he was hospitalised, he told his mother.
Family
Harding said that what happened to him does not only affect him but his family as well. “I can’t get to be around me daughter, be around me sister. Me mother does cry, me mother getting fine. My family in stress and I ain’t like what they going through at all, I prefer me eye shut than letting them go through all this and stressing.
“Everyday me mother ga stress fah me; I does feel proud me mother running up and down the hospital fah me because is one month now me mother running up and down trying she best with me and it is not nice,” an emotional Harding said.
