Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Po­lice ar­rest­ed a 43-year-old sus­pect hours af­ter a video was post­ed on so­cial me­dia of a man beat­ing and abus­ing a nine-year-old boy. The boy and his two younger broth­ers have been re­moved from their home in Moru­ga. Their moth­er was mur­dered in 2021.

Neigh­bours ex­pressed re­lief yes­ter­day at the news that a sus­pect had been ar­rest­ed. They claimed it was not the first time the chil­dren, who are ages nine, sev­en and five, had been abused.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred around 8.45 pm on Mon­day and was record­ed on a res­i­dent’s phone. In the video, the man is seen on the road, curs­ing, shov­ing and hit­ting the child and threat­en­ing to stab him with a knife. The child is heard scream­ing and beg­ging for mer­cy.

Per­son­nel from the Chil­dren Au­thor­i­ty along with of­fi­cers from the Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment (SVD) of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) were con­tact­ed around 9 pm on Tues­day, and ac­com­pa­nied by of­fi­cers from the Moru­ga Po­lice Sta­tion, in­clud­ing ASP Band­han, Sgt Charles and Mungroo, went to the sus­pect’s home and ar­rest­ed him.

An of­fi­cer con­firmed that the chil­dren are in good health in the cus­tody of the state as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.

Four years ago, the chil­dren’s moth­er Re­hana Jag­ger­nauth, was beat­en, stabbed, stran­gled and thrown in­to the Guaya­mare Riv­er, Ca­roni. Res­i­dents said they of­ten see the chil­dren un­su­per­vised in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Bren­ton Ed­wards, a fa­ther of ten, said the man be­comes ag­gres­sive when in­tox­i­cat­ed. Re­call­ing Tues­day’s in­ci­dent, he said the or­deal last­ed about two hours. He claimed the sus­pect re­turned home in­tox­i­cat­ed and be­gan beat­ing the el­dest child.

“He pelt the child out of the gallery, take him up, walk down the road with him and he have a long knife in his hand. He not stab­bing him but on­ly mak­ing at­tempts to stab him and beat­ing him,” Ed­wards said. He said the sus­pect al­so at­tacked his chil­dren who were on their way home from the par­lour. “He run them down and I had to run down there, take the knife from him to save my kids and them. We take the knife from him and I throw away the knife.”

Sev­er­al res­i­dents ad­mit­ted that they nev­er re­port­ed the abuse be­cause they were ei­ther afraid or had no con­fi­dence in the po­lice. How­ev­er, they praised the po­lice for ar­rest­ing him and tak­ing the chil­dren.

“I feel re­al proud about it. Every­body was glad be­cause we fed up in the neigh­bour­hood. As I say­ing is some­thing go­ing on right through over and over,” said Ed­wards. An­oth­er res­i­dent, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said she was dis­turbed and hurt by the video.

“Is not the first time. This hap­pen on many oc­ca­sions, but this is the first time it hap­pen where peo­ple saw it,” she said. “My ad­vice to peo­ple, even though you alone, you might be frus­trat­ed but that does not mean to say you could take out your frus­tra­tion on chil­dren. You could seek help.”

The 33-year-old moth­er of six al­so ad­vised com­mu­ni­ties to re­port abuse against chil­dren.

The Spe­cial Vic­tims De­part­ment is in­ves­ti­gat­ing.