A MOTHER'S NIGHTMARE

As I watched this bright young man being railroaded by his former colleague police officers, into the waiting police vehicle that would take him to the Bordelais Correctional Facility, my heart reached out to him and his mother.

HTS reported that Police Constable Dervin Wilson was sentenced to two years each for the possession of a controlled drug and possession with the intent to supply a controlled drug.

The two sentences will run concurrently, meaning that he will serve only two years in prison. Wilson was found guilty on May 7, 2013 and he was sentenced on Friday, June 14.

Wilson, who worked in the High Court (as an High Court orderly), was suspected of passing drugs to prison officers.

He was searched on the morning of July 31, 2012 outside the High Court while he was in full police uniform and a quantity of cannabis was found on his person.

It was a sad day for Choiseul - where the young man hails - and the RSLPF.

When I taught Derville Wilson a few years ago at the Choiseul Secondary School, I did not have the slightest clue the he would find himself in that ordeal. The consensus among all his teachers was that he was a model student and his report book during his 5 years of education at the school bears resounding testimony to that. His character and behaviour were spotless; and if I were ever to fill out an appraisal form for him, I would have rated him highly on all the criteria.

Hence, when I first heard he was charged for illegal drug possession whilst on duty, the news was simply unbelievable! How could that 'nice' boy of the quality of Derville who had appropriately decided to give his services to his country as a law enforcer ever be entangled in that type of quagmire? Theoretically, that was a "probability-zero" occurrence!

But they say hindsight is 20/20 and the fact is it did happen. He is now behind bars for 2 years. The damage has been done and it may be irreversible.

On reflection, I asked: Did Derville really know what he did? Did he do it on his own volition? What drove him to do it? Could there be powerful external network influences working behind the scenes that pounced on his rustic vulnerability? Perhaps, the authorities could consider working backwards into those possibilities and who knows - it might lead to the discovery of a goldmine of evidence and intelligence related to the local drug trade.

Derville’s Mom may not have 'closed her eyes' since he was first charged. The conviction and the prison sentence of her only son must be an unending nightmare to her.

But Gertrude is not alone! There are so many mothers who perhaps share her nightmare.

What's next for Derville? Your guess is as good as mine; but suffice it to say that history is replete with examples like him which may be instructive. If there are ex-inmates success stories, then they must be so small that they probably approach zero; and I'm sure the database which was started by the Division of Social Research at the Ministry of Social Transformation will bear me out, based the high incidence of un-employability and rejection of ex-convicts. Unlike many other developed countries, the prison stigma does not go away easily – if it does at all.

Hence, whereas a prison term may resolve a criminal problem, it may create a chain reaction of other problems - a lesson that many of our deviant young men will not learn and one that Derville despite being a law enforcer of reputable upbringing did not learn.

In conclusion, Derville earned what he deserved. He - especially being a police officer - should not have experimented with illegal drugs whether the intent was consumption or supply. He has destroyed his good name and in the process have left more blotches on the credibility of police force.

Kudos must go to the police force for a job well done, especially as the case involved one of their very own.

One assumes they will continue the good work and go out for the big guns, the heroes of drug underworld who brandish their ill-gotten boldly in our faces.