Brutally raped and later sexually assaulted twice by different persons was three times too many for Simone Daniels. And so last Saturday morning when she was attacked by a “very sick man” she defended herself by stabbing him in the chest with a small “penknife” she had in her possession for protection.
This is how the 27-year-old mother of five tells the story of why she stabbed 33-year-old Anthony Mark Fredericks at around 1.30am on Saturday morning as she was making her way home along a dark, desolate stretch of land in Barnwell North, Mocha Acadia East Bank Demerara.
Simone is not ashamed of who she is and readily admits that she has been addicted to alcohol for many years, but she would also tell you that for the last year she has been undergoing counselling as she fights the addiction. That addiction led to the temporary removal of three of her children from the home last year. But she succumbed to the urge on Saturday night when she visited a relative’s home and later bought “two bottle Banko wine and a half bottle white rum,” and then consumed the wine with Fredericks who allegedly made repeated sexual advances.
Hours later she left for her home when Fredericks crept up behind her and allegedly started to assault her; she told him to stop but he continued.
“I tell he ‘Mark if you can’t hear you guh feel’ and tek out a lil penknife I had in me pocket and bore he to he chest, and he tell me ‘You f… me up’ and he walk away and I come home to me children. But I know I didn’t bore he dah hard to kill he or anything…” the woman told the Sunday Stabroek during a recent visit to her Barnwell home.
However, he died later and the police arrested her. She said, “Just so I telling you deh story is just suh I tell the police and one a dem even say how he wrong, no is no.”
The pregnant woman was held for three days and then released on $20,000 bail after being told to go to court on Wednesday. However, she was not charged and she was later told by a detective that the man did not die from the stab wound but from his “sickness.”
Sunday Stabroek has been unable to ascertain what the post mortem results for Fredericks were.
The detective gave Simone a hug after informing her that she would not be charged, but she wished that his colleagues had shown some compassion several years ago when she reported being the victim of a brutal rape at the Providence Police Station. Two years ago she made two further reports of sexual assault to that station, and she is still awaiting justice, following days of “running around at the station.”
Simone left the Pomeroon where she was born about seven years ago along with her sister Melvina Daniels, and while she lived at Houston, East Bank Demerara for a brief period during which she worked at a snackette, she has been living in the Mocha area for quite some time.
Sitting on her modest platform surrounded by her children and with her sister sitting nearby, Simone recounted a life of alcohol addiction, abuse and disadvantage, but through it all there is the hope that things will get better for herself and children. Her reputed husband works at sea and he is away from home days at a time, but he has warned her “nah fuh walk on the road in the night plenty time,” she admitted.
Attacks
When Simone moved to Barnwell she initially lived on a ranch situated near the entrance of the community on the main dam, which also has horse racing track. Her father was the caretaker there and it was on a lonely night as she returned to the location that she was attacked by a known individual. She told of how the man grabbed her from behind and attacked her in the most brutal manner tearing off her clothes in the process.
“He do me all kind a thing I tell you, wah he ain’t do is wah he ain’t wan do. He throw me all in deh trench and jump behind and do more things,” she said simply.
It was the approach of her father and son that caused the attacker to stop and escape, and she was found lying naked in the mud groaning. Simone said she reported the assault to the Providence Police Station and a statement was taken, but that is the furthest the matter has gone.
She said her attacker, whom she knows well, remained in the area for quite some time but the police never visited him to question him.
“He went here fuh long and den he go away in the bush and he nah come back since,” the woman said.
She said eventually she stopped visiting the station and decided to try to move on with her life.
Two other attacks two years later were also not investigated by the lawmen.
Simone related that she was walking along a bushy dam one day when two teenagers, no older than 16, attacked her and sexually assaulted her.
“Dem come and start tearing up me clothes and feel me up and then tek a piece of cloth and force it in me mouth and dem feel me up good but I tell dem I know them and I going and report them to the station.”
She visited the station and while waiting to make her report a man approached her and indicated he was a lawman showing her a handcuff and a gun. He promised that he would investigate the matter, and walked her out of the station and back to Barnwell, assuring her that he would arrest the two boys after taking a statement from her. He walked her along the bushy path but as they were approaching her home he suddenly attacked her, pulled off her pants, and was about to rape her. She screamed, and her father who was at home came to her rescue, but by then the man had left.
She said she later learnt that the man, whom she can identify and sees from time to time, is not a police officer but has friends at the Providence Police Station whom he visits from time to time.
This assault was also reported to the Providence station but just as before Simone got no justice, and on Saturday morning she felt she could no longer depend on the system to help her.
Addiction
Simone knows that her addiction to alcohol may contribute to people wanting to take advantage of her and she wants to stop and be better example for her five children. She also knows that she can harm her unborn child by drinking alcohol.
“But I tell you before Friday night I didn’t really drink fuh a long time, if you see how I use to drink and is brown rum we use to drink and suh, but I want to stop,” she said sheepishly.
Entering counselling was forced upon her after the police removed her children from her home while she was out drinking.
Her last child was just months old when she visited one of the shops at a spot called ‘Kurupung,’ which is located on the community’s main dam and dotted with some crudely built shops. She had her child in her arms and as she consumed alcohol she nursed the child.
A concerned individual contacted the police and welfare officers and they responded. The same day she returned home and left the child with her 7 and 5-year-old siblings. She said her father was home at the time she left the children, but he later went to work a short distance away and the police visited the home and removed the children who were unattended.
They contacted her and told her to visit the Mocha Outpost, but instead she visited the Ministry of Human Services & Social Security and after agreeing to enter counselling her children were returned to her within a month. She has been attending the counselling sessions along with her sister ever since.
But it has been a battle, and she hopes it is one that she does not lose even as she looks at her sleeping one-year-old in her arms.
Her sister, who was sitting opposite her during the interview, nodded her head as it is a battle she is fighting as well.
Simone says her children attend school ‒ they were home on Thursday during the interview ‒ but that it is difficult to find the bus fare to send them all the way to the Agricola Primary School. Asked why not the Mocha Primary School, she said she is finding it difficult to get them transferred. Her four-year-old daughter is enrolled at Mocha but is yet to attend even though “she get all she things to go.”
And even as the sisters deal with the recent tragedy and every other thing that life throws at them, they still think about their father, Maurice Daniels, who left to go to his Barnwell home on a December night last year and has not been seen since.
At that time Simone was renting a house in the Mocha community and her sister lived with her father in Barnwell. Following the disappearance Simone once again returned to Barnwell and she plans to remain there because she does not have to pay rent and she is more comfortable.
She has plans to start planting a kitchen garden to contribute to the home and keep herself occupied, as she does not want to venture into the community.
The two sisters said they decided to move from the Pomeroon because it was too “lonely and you had to get a boat to go everywhere.”
They may not have to get a boat to traverse Barnwell, but the multiple attacks on Simone represent evidence of the danger of living in a community that has no basic amenities.
