Jail ‘inevitable’ for parents of half Filipina teen who committed suicide

HONG KONG – You will surely go to jail.

This was what a Hong Kong magistrate told Nicholas Cousins and Herminia Garcia, after they both pleaded guilty on September 25, to various offences uncovered after their 15-year-old daughter, Blanca, jumped to her death from their 19th floor apartment in April. (READ: Cousins suicide: A HK tragedy that could have been averted) 

Magistrate So Wai-tak’s statement followed a long and impassioned plea from the couple’s lawyer, Giles Surman for leniency, saying the two were still suffering from the death of their daughter, and were remorseful.

Surman also said putting the couple behind bars would impact greatly on the future of their younger daughter who is still grieving from the loss of her sister.

The younger girl, who appeared in court for the first time, also sent a letter to the magistrate asking that he does not impose a jail term on her parents, who she said “pretty much fulfill the definition of best parents.”

She said that having lost her only sister recently, it would be even more painful if her parents were jailed.

‘Where will I go?’

“If my parents were taken away from me, where will I go?”, she implored.

Surman finished off by saying that during their last conference before the court hearing, Cousins told him that he would be willing to go to prison forever “if it would bring Blanca back”.

But after listening patiently to the mitigation for nearly two hours, So asked Cousins and Garcia to stand before him, then proclaimed: “I will have to say that an immediate custodial sentence is inevitable”.

So said he needed more time to decide on the sentence, and set the next hearing date on October 9.

Garcia, 53, who is known to friends as Grace Cousins, pleaded guilty to breaching her conditions of stay by overstaying her visa for more than 20 years.

Cousins, 57, pleaded guilty to a charge of aiding and abetting Garcia’s violation of her visa conditions and to two counts of failing to register the births of their two daughters. (READ: Charges filed vs father of half-Filipina teen in HK suicide) 

For the first time, the court heard that Garcia came to Hong Kong to work as a domestic helper in 1990, two years after she had gotten married in the Philippines. But after two years of working here, her marriage reportedly broke down because her husband has been unfaithful and had a “drinking problem.”

Troubles

Garcia finished a two year-contract, but was terminated shortly before completing a second one. She applied for a visa extension on Nov. 7, 1994, but was denied and told to return to the Philippines. She never did.

The following year, she met Cousins, a self-made insurance executive who had just been posted to Hong Kong by his company, Jardine Lloyd Thompsons (JLT). The two began living together in August 1996, when Cousins reportedly first became aware of Garcia’s undocumented status.

Three years later their firstborn, Blanca Pamela was born, and just eleven months afterwards, the second daughter.

Meanwhile, Cousins continued to climb up the corporate ladder, until he became JLT’s managing director in 2008. He reportedly resigned from this post on August 12, five days after Blanca’s death. Last Sept. 14, he also resigned as a member of various company boards.

Surman said the first question that many would ask is why Cousins did not marry Garcia.

Apart from the fact that Garcia was already married, he said “unfortunately, in the Philippines, rightly or wrongly, there is no divorce”. You can have legal separation and annulment, but this is just done if there is an agreement between the parties.”

Still, he said the couple was very much aware that they were violating immigration laws and agonized over this each time they had a child.

The last time they talked seriously about legalizing their union was sometime after May 21 last year, when Garcia’s estranged husband died.

“This provided the couple an opportunity to marry but they could not do this in Hong Kong because she (Garcia) did not have identity documents,” said
Surman.

He also told the court that the hospital where both girls were born duly reported their births to the authorities. However, Cousins failed to comply with the requirement that he complete the registration within the mandated period of 42 days because this would have revealed Garcia’s illegal status.

Undocumented

Despite not having identity documents, Garcia and the two girls were included in Cousins’ medical insurance privilege so they had adequate health care.

Getting into regular schools was, however, a different matter, and the two girls were put in a tutorial center, the Sylvan Learning Center, which has a branch near their Repulse Bay home, after kindergarten.

Surman was quick to say that contrary to widespread belief that the Cousins daughters were not given adequate education, they attended Sylvan four times a week where they taught various subjects. At the time of her death, Blanca was said to be working through a number of GCSE (General Certificate for Secondary Education) papers.

The younger sister was made to undergo an assessment for her educational experience and socialization by a teacher in Island School recently, and the report indicated that she was “intelligent, well adjusted and socially competent”.

The younger Cousins is said to have moved to an international school after Immigration Department provided her with a Hong Kong ID card a few days after her undocumented status was uncovered following her sister’s tragic death.

Given these, Surman said that any notion that the deprivation of identity had caused social and emotional difficulty on the young girls “can now be put to rest.”

Still, he could not offer any explanation as to why Blanca felt compelled to take her life.

On the day she died, the family reportedly went out to dinner in Tsimshatsui, and upon returning home, the couple decided to watch home movies while the girls retired to their bedrooms.

Shortly afterwards, the parents saw Blanca go into the bathroom. When she did not reappear after some time, they decided to check on her by knocking on the door but got no answer. Alarmed, Cousins broke down the door and was horrified to see the window open and Blanca gone.

He rushed down to the ground floor with his younger daughter trailing him, and there saw Blanca on the pavement, already dead.

“Why did she jump? We simply do not know,” said Surman.

Pending the sentencing, Cousins remains out on $10,000 bail while Garcia paid $100,000 cash for bail and secured a surety in the same amount from Cousins’ colleague and friend, Michael Wellsted. – Rappler.com