A young mother of Farm, East Bank Essequibo is distressed after a demolition exercise on Tuesday left her and her four children, including an eight-month-old baby, homeless.
Colene Richards, 35, told Stabroek News that it was painful watching her one-flat, three-bedroom concrete house smashed to pieces and being unable to do anything to stop it.
The demolition exercise followed the end of a five-year court battle with a remigrant from England whose claim was that Richards’s house had been built on her land. For her part, Richards insisted that the land she occupied was the government reserve and an uncle, Nigel Drakes, who resides next door told this newspaper that he has a copy of the surveyor’s report to support her claim.
He told this newspaper that over 40 years ago his mother had received a lease from the government to occupy a stretch of land, which included the plot on which Richards’s house was built 15 years ago.
However, the court ruled in the re-migrant’s favour and ordered that the house be demolished after she provided a transport which proved that she was the owner of the land.
Drakes insisted that the transport was wrong and said that the woman had initially tried unsuccessfully to claim a part of his land and a part from Richards. After that failed, he said, she then decided to do another survey and claimed the entire plot that his niece’s house was on.
During last year, one of the re-migrant’s relatives and a team had gone to demolish Richards’s he house but she had begged them not to because of her advanced stage of pregnancy.
She recalled that around 10 am on Tuesday, she was sitting on the stairs with her baby when they came again with two police officers, two court marshals and four workers to demolish the house.
According to Richards, they told her she had five minutes to remove her belongings. “But I tell them I would only remove my [three younger] children and that they can break it with the things inside.”
She said sadly that she told them that to see if they would change their minds but they were bent on carrying out the exercise.
The next thing she knew was that they started to remove her furnishings and other items themselves and started breaking. As this was happening, Richards was screaming in vain, begging them to stop.
Her relatives as well as residents also came out in support, yelling at the team about how heartless they were.
Richards, who is currently staying with relatives, is worried about where to start her life again.
