Delano Forbes’ family says he needs medical attention; head of visiting committee says his injuries were not serious

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Murder accused Delano Forbes (File photo)
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By Latrishka Thomas

“Stop advantage my son,” said Cuthbert Forbes Snr, the father of multi-murder accused, Delano Forbes.

Family members of the 25 year-old prisoner are calling for him to be taken to the Mount St John’s Medical Centre for proper treatment for injuries they believe he sustained during an incident with a prison officer on Wednesday.

That day, Delano reportedly hit a prison officer in his head with an aerosol can while said officer was attempting to restrain him, causing the officer to sustain an injury that required four stitches.

The prisoner was said to have sustained only a small cut to his cheek and lip.

However, Forbes Snr said that his son’s injuries are more serious than they had been made out to be.

“His face is like a balloon. He actually has a hole going through and through his left cheek. They patch it up in the prison; they are no doctors,” the father said, adding that he has seen a photo of Delano in his cell, which was reportedly taken some time after the incident.

“They should at least take him to the doctor,” he said noting that a doctor will be able to indicate the nature of the injuries.

The man further alleged that the police are taking advantage of his son.

“I’m reaching out to [Public Safety Minister] ‘Cutie’ Benjamin, all of them; please stop let the prison officer or whoever they have beating him up, stop [taking] advantage my son. He really needs medical attention and I think they should do that.

“Every time you come to the case for the murders, something comes up. First time they take him to Swetes, they let him go and say he escape. Now he went to court he pleaded not guilty for the two murders, they beat him up,” Forbes Sr claimed.

Another family member said that the story about Delano refusing his restraints is false.

“As I said earlier, I know this young man and he has never been said to have refused wearing his restraints. Why would he, all of a sudden, refuse to wear his restraints and was the routine procedure being carried out that caused them to remove him from his cell?” he queried.

The family member also shared that they had received word that Delano had been screaming in pain.

“According to an inside source, Delano was badly beaten by two prison officers and was left in a severe state. Even more disturbing are the complaints of his agonizing screams of pain as he cried out throughout the night,” he alleged.

However, Chairman of the Prison Visiting Committee, Bishop Charlesworth Browne told Observer that the alleged serial killer’s injuries were evidently minor when he visited him immediately following Wednesday’s incident.

“He had a laceration on one side of his face and that was sustained in the scuffle. He was complaining that pepper spray had gone into his eyes and he was lamenting that his eyes were red but his eyes are not clear eyes, generally…and again, I saw him shortly after he had gone through the ordeal,” the Bishop revealed.

“He received full medical attention,” he added.

But the Bishop said that unlike the prison officer, the laceration Delano received did not need stitches and he was therefore not taken to the hospital.

Browne further detailed that he “went to the very spot where the incident took place”.

“I spoke to the officers involved … and I asked him [about] the officer he was wrestling with. I asked him, ‘did he hit you?’ He said ‘no’,” Browne disclosed.

“He tried to say that the injury that the prison officer sustained was because he hit his head on some part of the table while he was on the ground, but the mistake he made is that the officer who got the injury is not the officer he was wrestling with on the ground, but everything was happening so fast he didn’t remember who is [who],” the Bishop said.

The chairman of the visiting committee, however, admitted that Delano was initially short of breath and complained of pain.

“When he started speaking with me, he was speaking out of breath and he was saying he can’t breathe and he is asthmatic … and he wanted his pump and that kind of thing, and in short order he was not heaving and going on like that anymore.

“He said he is having some pain and you know that’s natural whenever you get into a fight and he asked if he could get paracetamol and he might have got some,” Browne told Observer.

When contacted, on Friday, the Superintendent of Prisons, Lt Col Eugene Phillip said he was not aware that Delano had suffered any serious injuries.

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