State must pay!
Published:Tuesday | January 18, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Children's advocate vows to champion cause of dead minors
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
JOLTED BY the deaths of three children over the past two weeks, the Office of the Children's Advocate (OCA) says it will be suing the State for breach of duty and seeking damages on behalf of aggrieved families.
Children's Advocate Mary Clarke said yesterday that the state has been failing to protect the rights of its children, and vowed that her agency would be bringing the authorities to book.
"This is un-acceptable and authorities must be held accountable if they are contributing to the deaths of children," Clarke told The Gleaner yesterday.
Her declaration comes in the wake of a Manchester tragedy in which 12-year-old Marques Morgan and nine-year-old brother Shamar drowned in a pit that was dug and left open by the Manchester Parish Council.
Mandeville Mayor Brenda Ramsay yesterday declined to comment on whether the local authority was negligent in having the pit, which was dug years ago, uncovered for so long.
The parish council had dug the pit in the yard at the boys' home and had supplied the materials for it to be covered. The Gleaner was told that the family intended to cover it this week.
However, since the deaths of the boys, the parish council has plugged the pit and Ramsay said alternative arrangements have been made for another soakaway.
That incident, which took place on Saturday in Broadleaf, followed another at the Coke View Primary School in Westmoreland two weeks ago in which seven-year-old Nicholas Hamilton, a grade one student, was killed when a goalpost fell on him.
"The State should be held accountable. I have asked for the staff to get the details of all of these cases so we can pursue them," Clarke said.
The children's advocate vowed that her office would be moving to hold the State responsible for deaths and injuries that have resulted from its actions. She said her office was in the process of filing several civil suits against the Government, seeking damages for the victims of the Armadale fire.
The OCA told The Gleaner yesterday that several claims are being made of the Government in regard to the Armadale incident in which seven wards of the State were killed in a fire said to have been started by a policeman.
Deputy Children's Advocate Justice Henderson Downer said the claims were at various stages. Five have already been filed in court and another nine were ready for filing.
He also said there were several other cases relating to Armadale that the children's advocate wished to file but had been unable to because victims of the fire and their caregivers could not be found.
Meanwhile, Public Defender Earl Witter said his office was prepared to seek redress for persons who have suffered damage as a result of negligence by the State.
He said he was not au fait with whether his office has been asked to conduct any such investigation into the case of the Manchester boys. Nonetheless, Witter said his office was in the process of seeking remedy for quite a few persons who have complained that they were injured as a result of negligence by the State.
"If, as a result of the actions taken by any central government or local government authority, injury or death results as a count of negligence or breach of statutory duty, our office would either intervene or be prepared to entertain complaint and would investigate and seek an appropriate remedy for any victim," Witter told The Gleaner.