The six former Republic Bank employees who were dismissed on Tuesday, following the disappearance of $8 million from an ATM even though no evidence implicated them, feel that their human rights have been violated.
Breaking their silence for the first time yesterday, the five females and one male, told of the trauma they endured prior to being fired after giving years of service to the bank. They said none of them had even ever been issued with a memo and many times, they went beyond the call of duty because they loved their jobs and wanted to give of their best.
The six people told Stabroek News that they would never forget the horrible experience of having to spend two nights and two days in the lock-ups.
The five women in the group recalled the trauma of being driven home sitting in an open-back police vehicle with police officers armed with high-powered weapons and then having their homes searched.
“That is an experience I would never forget. Imagine me having to go home to my children with armed police officers accompanying me and my four-year-old son saying, ‘mommy you come in a police vehicle’ and I always telling him only bad people are locked up by the police,” Carolyn Paul said yesterday. She wondered how she will now explain to her son that she did nothing wrong but was yet locked up by the police. Paul, who was a senior ABM/Treasury custodian at the bank, Natasha George, who held the same position as Paul, and Melissa Hollings-worth, who worked in the same department, were placed in the open-back police vehicle and driven around, as the police searched their respective homes.
Vanessa Valz, Roxanne Douglas and the lone male, who did not want his name printed, live outside Georgetown and had “the luxury” of being driven around in an unmarked police vehicle.
“If one of was guilty or they found anything against us we would have understood, but all we did was give them years of our lives and this is how we are treated. We were sitting at home all the time and saying that it would come to an end but we never thought they would have fired us. We thought they would have apologised to us or something,” George told Stabroek News.
Hollingsworth added that none of them had an intention or returning to the bank after being treated in such a manner but they would have felt better if they were at least given the opportunity to resign from the institution.
They were called into the bank on Tuesday and issued with a brief letter with the heading, ‘Re: Severance of Employment,’ which stated: “We refer to the matter of caption and advise that with immediate effect and in accordance with the provisions of the Termination of Employment and Severance Pay Act 1997, your employment contract with the bank is hereby severed. In accordance with the above-mentioned Act, you will receive one month’s salary and allowances in lieu of notice. Severance pay will follow.”
The six former employees have pledged to move on with their lives. However, they are still concerned over a memo that was sent to all employees in the various branches stating that their services were “terminated” rather than severed. That memo said, “Re: Terminated. We advise that the services of the following officers were terminated with effect from March 20, 2007.”
Called out
The lives of the six persons changed on February 17, when Paul and George, the two senior persons in the department and who were on call, were called and told that something was wrong with the ATM machine at Kitty. The women said when they went to the site they discovered that wires had been cut and a piece of equipment was missing. They said they called in the information to management and were instructed to report to the bank’s Water Street headquarters. In the meantime, the four other employees were called at home and given the same instructions.
They arrived around 11am and were questioned separately for hours being asked questions such as where they were from the Friday afternoon to around 2 am on Saturday, the time when the money went missing.
They noted that even at that point they did not think anything was going to happen to them as they felt after the questioning they would have been told to go home. Some of their parents even called and they said they told them not to get any lawyers as nothing was going to happen. They said that they were not even allowed to go out to lunch. When the request was made, they were asked what they wanted to eat and the officials ordered lunch for them.
Around 10.30 that night things changed as unknown to them the bank called in the police and a plain clothes rank reported to the bank. At that point one of the bank officials told them that they were convinced that at least one or two of them were involved in the theft and they should use their cell phones to call their families and tell them they were going to the Kitty Police Station. Another official offered them the use of the bank’s phones.
George said when she called her mother and informed her she started to scream and this caused her to start crying too even as they were escorted to the police station where the female officer asked the bank officials what was the issue and then proceeded to take their names and other particulars. When they arrived at the station, George’s and Hollingsworth’s mothers were present and they were crying. “My mother said she sent her daughter to school and she knows she is not a thief,” Hollingsworth recalled. Shortly after the five women were taken to the East La Penitence Police Station while the male remained at Kitty. “The bank officials were so bent on getting us locked up that they drove us to East La Penitence,” Valz said.
‘Stoop and shake’
Douglas recalled that before they were booked she requested to use the washroom and she was made to strip and told to “stoop down and shake” by the female police officer. The four other women said they feel they would have had the same experience if a lawyer had not turned up at the station at the same time and they were quickly booked in after handing up all their jewellery and other personal articles.
Their shoes were also taken and they were placed in a cell with about ten other women. “We stood up whole night. We cried and we prayed but we did not sleep we were just praying for daylight to come as we thought we were going to go home,” Hollingsworth said.
But when morning came, they were told to have a bath, which had to be done in the open with all the other inmates watching; one bucket of water had to be shared by two persons.
There was also no privacy in the toilet. Their relatives and friends by that point had brought change of clothing and food for them. Around 11.30 am, the police removed the five women from the lock-up and as they felt they were going home, they handed over all their goodies to the other inmates.
However, they were taken to the Alberttown Police Station where they were asked to make statements and then their homes were searched.
The lone male in the group said he was placed in the lock-ups at Kitty with other prisoners and forced to sleep on concrete, which was very nasty and smelly. He said not far from the cell, there was an open area where the prisoners defecated and urinated. “I did not eat anything because I did not want to have to use the toilet area,” he said. His home was also searched on that day.
The six were finally released the next day, Monday, on $20,000 bail each.
Aggressive questioning
Two days later, on Wednesday, they were called to a meeting with “a manager at the bank”. However, when they arrived they were again separately questioned and this time not only by the bank’s local security officers, but also by two officers from Trinidad.
“They were very hostile and the questioning was very aggressive. They placed you in such a manner that you had the eyes of all them on you at one time and one of them would be peering at you as they asked the questions,” George said. The
y were given letters of suspension that same day.
The employees questioned whether it was right for the bank to call them in and question them even though the matter was handed over to the police. They pointed out that none of their images were captured on the camera at the ATM machine.
The former employees, who have given a total of some 35 years of service to the bank, recalled that following the disappearance of US$90,000 from the bank last year, they were told that they were honest and hard working and were placed in that department, which was renamed and just had the six of them. George said she was on maternity leave when the money went missing and as such was not suspended like her colleagues in that department, some of whom resigned, while others remained on job.
“Now they have ruined our lives and would never answer for it. They have embarrassed us and our families and will get away with it,” George pointed out adding that there would always be a cloud over them when they have to find new jobs.
They said they decided to speak out in the hope that the bank would not treat any of its employees in such a manner again. They also they wanted to clear their names as they have done nothing wrong.
