Officers of the Child Protection Unit (CPU) are set to approach the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) today, for instructions after relatives of a one-year-old girl were held for alleged abuse.
Police said the infant was left nursing serious injuries after a 17-second video showed her along with a 2-year-old toddler being kicked and stomped on while on a bed. The incident occurred at a house in Claxton Bay. Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Wayne Mystar told Guardian Media yesterday, that the child was in a stable condition and safe.
Asked for an update on the investigation, Mystar said, “Child protection investigators meeting the DPP in the morning (today).”
His update follows investigations into the beating of the one-year-old girl after she was found by police last Wednesday, struggling to breathe at a relative’s house.
The child’s grandfather revealed she had previously fallen in July while in the care of a 19-year-old relative and had been hospitalised as a result.
After being discharged then, the Children’s Authority and the CPU placed her in the care of a female relative.
As the investigation progressed between September 26 to present, three people were detained.
They have since remained in custody.
The child’s grandfather, in an interview last week, said his daughter got pregnant at the age of 17, and although he reported the matter to the police, no action was ever taken to arrest or charge the baby’s father by the authorities.
He claimed after the baby’s birth, the father disowned her.
Police said reports of abuse emerged shortly after the baby was placed with the female relative in August, which resulted in the child being moved from her mother’s home in Claxton Bay to an area along the Marabella Trainline.
The grandfather claimed the badly injured infant was returned to her mother and her mother’s family on September 26—suffering from a broken rib, bruises about the body, and a burn mark on her leg from an iron.
The grandfather claimed he reported the abuse to the police but no action was taken until villagers alerted authorities, following which the baby was removed from the house.