Mother appeals for son to go home

For eight days the mother of 15-year-old Andre Donalds said friends have tried to convince the Fort Road teen to go home, now, Nathalie “Rushell” Phillips of Tindale Road is turning to the police and public for help.
Phillips said after several failed attempts to get the Ottos Comprehensive School student to turn from his wayward ways, she resorted to sending him to live with his father three months ago.
However, Phillips said since October 4 the teen has not slept at home.
“The father said he saw him coming out an old vehicle and he said ‘you have the house why are you sleeping in [an]old vehicle?’ and he beat him. From Wednesday he [took] off, but, all kind of people say they saw him in Grays Farm, Ottos and all over,” Phillips said.
She said since Monday night she provided the father with a photo of the teen so he could file a report with police, however, the woman said the Fort Road father was reluctant to go to the police.
“He come to tell me that a lady said if he put it in the TV he going to get bad, I told him ‘he already bad, it done bad.’ If he on the road than anything can happen,” the concerned mother said.
In pleading for her son to return home, the Tindale Road woman urged the teen to change the destructive path he is heading down.
“The lifestyle for that road he is trying to go down is not nice, because he ah try follow everybody who getting turned out of school and he just want to be with them but he going to be sorry. He started to smoke herb and that is the reason he [doesn’t] live with me because he [wants] to follow company,” she said.
Phillips said it is the first time the teen has left home.
She said his friends reported telling Donalds his father has been looking for him, but, he insisted “me nah care.”
The teen has not been in school since running away from home.
“You can’t love somebody and still spoil them. If me can’t control him and he can’t control him then he need to make the government take care of him,” Phillips said. “These things cause embarrassment, he is 15, nobody should have had to go station for him.”
On Friday police issued a bulletin for the second form student. Anyone with information can contact the Criminal Investigation Department at 462-3913/462-3914 or Phillips at 724-1148.