Support was not there for an abused victim

Mar 04, 2018 Features / Columnists, My Column

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On Thursday, I edited a story of a man going to court for scalding his son and walking out a free person. The story goes that the mother and the child refused to testify against him.
I was angry that a mother would see her son scalded and allow the perpetrator to walk away, leaving the boy with scars that would take him to his grave. I could not understand why. But as they stay in this line of business, behind every story there is a story.
When the reporter brought the story I asked her whether she was certain of the facts. I asked her to describe the actions of the mother and her child while they were before the magistrate. The answers were far from pleasing to me.
But my perception of the incident changed the next day. For starters, the police were slow to bring charges. To compound the situation, the Child Protection Agency was sadly lacking, although it was kept abreast of what had happened from the start.
This scalding took place in November; the perpetrator, who happened to be the father of the child, did not appear in court until the end of February. The story is remarkable. The child’s mother was out of the country on a government-sponsored course. Her five children were left with their father.
When the scalding occurred the father did not deign to take his son to hospital. That task was left to the boy’s fourteen-year-old sister. The mother came home almost immediately and reported the matter to the Police at East La Penitence.
According to reports, the police were slow to react. Repeated visits to the police did not improve the situation. That I could not understand. The Department of Child Care and Social Protection was approached; again, the response was slow. The mother was left to her own devices. She has filed for divorce.
On the day of the court, she expected support from the Child Care people. There was none, so the child was left on his own to testify against his father. He was trembling before the magistrate, caught in the pickle of sending his father to jail. He needed the support, because the matter was in open court.
I could imagine the child looking around and seeing the faces of strangers around him. There were the thoughts in his head about the reaction of the public of him sending his father to jail. He could not withstand the pressure. The only option was to decline prosecution; his mother could not pressure him to do so.
When she read the report in the newspapers, she hated the impression that she was an uncaring person, that she sacrificed her son for her husband. She said that the situation was different. It was a case of no support.
I know that the child protection people are hard pressed, but there must be some way that the people there can spare someone to go to the court with victims. I have not yet spoken to the police to understand why the matter took so long before charges could have been implemented.
This brings us to another situation. Here is the child, his siblings and his mother sharing the home with the abuser. That alone must be uncomfortable, especially since the child must confront his abuser every waking day.
In court the man said that the scalding was an accident, but the child knows otherwise. This was the man who, when asked why he did it, showed no remorse. He simply told the woman that her son, his child, knew why. But he told the court that it was an accident. The truth is something else.
This woman has filed for divorce and I know that this situation could get ugly. I understand that the man has nowhere to go and that the house is jointly owned by him and his wife. There is bound to be anger. I sincerely believe that the wife is now at risk of serious harm.
She has not been able to get a restraining order since the incident, so she must share the home and possibly the bed with her son’s abuser. There must be tension in the home. There is no protection for the family.
This incident caused me to remember two others. Years ago, a child lost his fingers because his father pushed his hands into boiling water because the child took a piece of meat from his plate. The man went to jail but the child became a street dweller. I remember seeing him gambling outside Bourda Market.
On another occasion, I was at the East La Penitence Police Station where a little boy of no more than nine had become a perpetual runaway. His father was at the police station to collect his son. I asked the man why his son would keep running away. But earlier, I asked the boy about his refusal to stay at home.
The man told me a horror story. “He see me kill he mother.”
Two incidents that were traumatic to two young boys. This could be a third. To date, the scalded boy has not been counseled; but I don’t think it is too late. As for the mother, she must keep contemplating the fallout from the divorce.
There are laws designed to protect children. The people who should be executing the laws have been markedly absent in this case. Perhaps there is a shortage of people, but if this is the case, then something must be done in a hurry.

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