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  • 2 years ago
Clinical and Forensic Traumatologist Hanif Benjamin weighs in on the events surrounding the death of Hannah Mathura. He joins us on set.

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00:00 Well tonight clinical and forensic traumatologist Hanif Benjamin weighs in
00:05 on the events surrounding the death of Hannah Matura. He joins us on set. Good
00:10 evening. Good evening and thank you for having me. Thank you so much for joining
00:14 us. Mr. Benjamin as a clinical and forensic traumatologist can you help us
00:20 understand what is unfolding in this case? So right now there is a lot of
00:26 questions, more questions than answers and we are seeing a multi-layer of
00:31 trauma and information seeping out. One with the most gruesome finding in the
00:38 death of Matura as well as the children, the revelation, the minor child and the
00:44 lifelong what seemed to be abuse. And so when you look at all of these things
00:49 combined you start to form the question in your mind what really happened at
00:55 this resident? What has been going on with these people from childhood into
01:00 early adulthood that has caused or is causing them to actually be where it is
01:07 at this stage? As you know as a forensic traumatologist you try to find truth in
01:13 matters of severe and traumatic situation especially in the police arena.
01:18 And so this matter is definitely leading down that road. Now Mr. Benjamin
01:24 you know it was revealed that through the autopsy that that Hannah was shot in
01:29 her head. Now what effect would that have on let's say her siblings living in that
01:34 house? Now that is one of the major concerns for me especially having been
01:39 committed as the autopsy said over seven years ago and the question as to whether
01:44 those children were present during that shooting, whether they witnessed, whether
01:48 they were told about it and whether they were part of the environment where the
01:54 trauma occurred, where this child was buried and also where they play and
01:59 apparently lived with this child being there. Definitely if those things are
02:04 found to be factual you can imagine the level of trauma that these children
02:09 would have been going through. Now one must consider and I always talk about
02:14 you know Bandura and classical conditioning and whether those actions
02:19 were used as fair tactics to keep people in line because one must ask the
02:24 question why so long? How so long? Why was this allowed to go down for seven years?
02:30 So you really want to find out as to what are the effects and that is why
02:36 right now even though the criminal investigation is going on there must be
02:42 a psychological forensic investigation as well to look at the mental capacity
02:48 of all the people involved because while you know you can arrest one or two you
02:54 had a house full of people and the question now becomes whether or not one
03:00 or multiple persons are culpable or whether or not they were victims and if
03:07 so to what extent? Was there or were they a part of a lifetime of trauma? What type
03:13 of abuse if any? What was going on with them? And so we need to begin to ask
03:17 these forensic questions to ascertain where we are today so this is not an
03:23 easy case this is not a cut-and-dry case even for criminal investigation or
03:28 forensic investigation. Do you think a similar investigation has to be done
03:33 into the mind of the alleged perpetrator or the suspect that person who is a
03:39 suspect in this matter at this time? I can tell you I don't want to say what
03:44 the air of certainty but I can tell you from a professional perspective one
03:50 would want to ascertain the cognitive ability of everybody involved so I
03:56 suspect that a psychiatric assessment might be on the table I also suspect
04:02 that clinical interviewing might be on the table because you want to ascertain
04:06 whether or not cognitive and clinical ability is there because when you look
04:13 at the situation Trinidad and Tobago has called it bizarre we are all calling it
04:17 bizarre it is not normal and once it enters into that arena of abnormality
04:22 we must determine whether the people involved are in fact operating on a
04:28 cognitive spectrum where they can understand right and/or wrong and if
04:34 they understand right or wrong whether they are culpable being a child and now
04:39 moving into this state and if they do not understand right or wrong what would
04:42 have accounted for this and therefore I suspect that some level of clinical and
04:49 psychiatric interview shall or should take place to help make a determination
04:54 and you know what about neighborhood and reporting child abuse you know like that
04:59 community reporting child abuse because one resident would have said she would
05:04 have visited the police several times to make a report and yet the police have no
05:08 report I believe the children's the Children's Authority also said that they
05:12 had no report you know how do communities deal with with matters like
05:16 these scenarios like this is the interesting part for so many years that
05:22 abuse or alleged abuse would be perpetrated under the nose of neighbors
05:26 but one must also consider the environment that environment is not a
05:30 place with heavy pedestrian traffic per se right but we must also understand the
05:36 value we place on children and we're seeing where children continue to be on
05:42 the other end of the stick that is not so clean when it comes to abuse it is
05:46 telling us and this case is saying to us that if we don't take a serious look at
05:52 child abuse child reporting and also holding people are accountable when
05:59 report is not made then we must understand we must also understand what
06:03 happened in the school system whether or not the children were displaying
06:07 behaviors that were concerning and alarming and why the authorities were
06:11 not called and if they were in fact called why nothing was done so this case
06:16 from a forensic perspective has multiple layers and multiple question must be
06:23 asked and answered in order for us to move on as a society thank you so much
06:28 mr. Benjamin let me make sure I have your title correct traumatologist and
06:32 clinical is it forensic yes clinical and forensic traumatologist thank you so
06:37 much for that enlightening conversation and dialogue thank you for having me
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