A 21-year-old mother whom the court heard burnt her child on the buttocks with a hot fork was today charged and remanded to prison for the offence.
Okele Chester of 56 James Street, Albouystown, Georgetown, appeared before Senior Magistrate Leron Daly in the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.
It is alleged that on May 27, 2019 at 56 James Street, Albouystown, Georgetown, while being the guardian of a two-year-old child who was left in her custody, she willfully ill-treated the child in a manner which caused unnecessary suffering.
The unrepresented woman pleaded not guilty to the charge after it was read to her. She told the court she did not willfully make her child, a girl, get burnt.
The court prosecutor Christopher Morris objected to bail being granted to the woman on the grounds of the serious nature of the allegation and the penalty the charge attracts.
Morris told the court that the child received burns to her buttocks and bruises to her face.
According to information, on the day in question, Chester was at home frying plantains when the child approached her on her right side and asked for some of the food but the defendant ignored her. The child then moved to the woman’s left side to get her attention but was ignored once more.
The court heard that the child then picked up her mother’s phone and began playing with it. However, the phone fell to the ground and the mother, upon hearing the noise, investigated and soon realised that the electronic device was not working.
The prosecutor said that Chester became upset and placed the hot fork on the child’s buttocks.
The matter was then reported to the police by the child’s father who had observed the marks on his daughter’s face and buttocks. Chester was arrested and charged.
The magistrate upheld the prosecutor’s objections and remanded the woman to prison. She was instructed to make her next court appearance on June 21.
