Clothes vendor in fear for her life after brutal beating at Leonora

A 28-year-old clothes vendor is fearful for her life after she was brutally attacked more than three weeks ago at Leonora, West Coast Demerara by her abusive ex-partner who continues to evade the police.

Reports are that the attack took place minutes after midnight on March 7th during which Amrita Persaud was severely beaten about her face. The incident was witnessed by her 14-year-old nephew.

During an interview with Stabroek News yesterday, Persaud explained that her sister works as a cleaner at a bar in the community and would often times finish working late in the evenings.

As such, she said she and her nephew were on their way to the bar to accompany her sister back home when the attack unfolded in vicinity of the Leonora market.

Persaud related that the suspect, Brian Hutchins of Uitvlugt Side Line Dam, WCD approached her and accused her of seeing someone else. After she responded,

Persaud said the suspect allegedly dealt her several blows to her face.

 “….I was walking going there (the bar) with my nephew and (the suspect)  come up from behind a container because the place did dark and he come up to me saying that ‘I hear you get police man’. I say ‘bai wah is you problem? I tell yuh I don’t want nothing to do with you’ and he seh ‘you can’t get nobody else, I tell yuh’ and he go fah grab me and I knock away he hand and by time then he cuff me straight to me forehead,” Persaud explained.

She said she quickly shouted and told her nephew to run for his safety in fear that the suspect would have attacked him too. “…After the cuff in the forehead, I get a next cuff at my eye at the bottom. I didn’t remember anything else after till I was at Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) the next day around 8.30-9 (in the morning),” she added.

By this time, she said her nephew had already informed her sister. However, by time she arrived, the suspect had already fled the scene.

Persaud was initially taken to the Leonora Cottage Hospital and later transferred to the GPH. Whilst at the GPH, Persaud said she reportedly spent hours without being attended to.

She said eventually she and her sister decided to leave for home since she wanted to rest. Two days after, she said she had to return to the hospital since she was still experiencing bleeding in her nose and swelling to her eyes. On her second return, she said she received medical attention and sent away.

Contacted yesterday, Regional Commander Simon McBean confirmed that the matter was reported to the police on March 9th.

He said to date several efforts made to apprehend the suspect proved futile.

Up to yesterday morning, McBean said the police conducted a search for the suspect but came up empty handed. “They had a gap between the 15th and now. Up to this morning (yesterday) they have an entry that they went and look for him,” he said.

McBean explained that Persaud had initially provided the police with a statement and was asked to return but to date she hasn’t.  As such, he urged Persaud to contact the police at the soonest.

“Regular violence”

Persaud said she has known the suspect for about ten years now.

She said they previously shared a relationship which she ended in June, 2018 due to his constant violence towards her. “Before we was living comfortable. He never was a violent person towards me but in 2018, he start to get regularly violent. He would hold me just like that and butt me and buss my head if he only see I talk with someone,” Persaud said.

She noted that after she ended the relationship, the suspect never accepted and still showed up wherever she is present. “Every night he would be in this yard here because I know if he in the yard he would keep knocking, he would keep sound fah I know that he in the yard and he would try to hear like if anybody in here with me,” Persaud stated.

The latest of the attacks, she said was in November last. “He beat me a Saturday night. I does mind chicken and I does walk and sell clothing too and the chicken pen, the light was giving me lil problem. So I went mixing the light around 6.30 time and it have two empty lot around me here, I don’t have neighbour and he (Hutchins) come in from one of the empty lot and start to check me up and slapping me up and so and saying about he hear I got man,” Persaud recalled.

“But I tell he ‘bai you always hearing I got man, yuh ever see me with anybody? Yuh can’t keep doing these things this, you bullying me all the time’ and he keep beating me and pushing me inside the house. When he beat me up bad and eventually he left and he went away,” she added.

Persaud said Hutchins’ family learnt of this attack and confronted him about it. The next day, she said her returned and allegedly attacked her again. “I was cooking because I wasn’t well and I was hungry and I was trying to get something to eat….so when I went opening the pipe, he sneak up on me and tell me why I tell he stepfather. And he start beating me from outside again,” she noted.

“He stand up and stamping me. He beat more like a man how he was stamping me and beating me, strangling me with wires and so on. He always cuffing me and them thing in my head,” Persaud said.

Persaud told this newspaper that she believes the police are not taking the matter seriously. “Every time he is somewhere and I call the police, they take so long fah go. By time they reach there, he already gone,” she said.

The woman said she is fearful for her life.  “I am scared because I am not free. I can’t go outside as I feel. I can’t go about anyway because he always sneaking up. We are not together and he always sneaking up peeping me some way. He always doing me this,” she said.

Known to police

McBean told Stabroek News that the suspect is known to the police. He is wanted for escaping for lawful custody and assaulting a police officer also.

Persaud said that several reports has since been lodged with the police for Hutchins.

She said only on one occasion when he was arrested, she “begged: for him. “He was lock up, he was on bail and on the first time when he was lock up I did sorry for him the first time because he beg me and I did but after he keep doing that he relatives them keep bailing him,” Persaud noted.

In November last year, she stated that Hutchins was scheduled to appear in court but he was absent. As a result, she said an arrest warrant was issued for him.

Apart from this, she said Hutchins was detained in January in relation to another matter and he escaped from the police station.

McBean explained the suspect has several reports against him but not all involve Persaud. “Two was assault, one was a report made against him by someone else and the police intervened and that is how the police was assulted by him also and I believe he is wanted also for escaping from lawful custody,” he said.

He noted that prior to the latest attack, the police had been looking for the suspect and on several occasions when they showed up at Persaud’s house she would verbally abuse the police.