Clarendon residents sprang into action after a six-year-old girl was taken from her school by an unidentified man, triggering parish-wide panic. The abduction was thwarted when Councillor Scean Barnswell spotted a man walking with a child in a St Thomas More Preparatory uniform along the Bustamante Highway and quickly intervened. Barnswell blocked the man’s path, confronted him, and rescued the child before handing both over to police.

Councillor foils abduction after spotting missing Clarendon child on highway

Jamaica Gleaner/10 Dec 2025/Olivia Brown/Gleaner Writer

A PARISH-WIDE state of panic was triggered yesterday after a six-year-old girl was reportedly taken from school in May Pen, Clarendon, by an unidentified man.

The reported abduction was foiled some hours later when a councillor intercepted the alleged suspect along the Bustamante Highway in the parish with the child.

The child, a student of St Thomas More Preparatory School, had reportedly gone missing without a trace after a man reportedly walked off the school compound with her. An alarm was raised when her parent arrived later to pick her up and discovered that her belongings were still at the school, but the young child was nowhere to be found.

As news of her disappearance spread rapidly across Clarendon, residents went into high alert, watching roadways, sharing information, and joining the desperate effort to locate the missing child.

It was during this tense period that Councillor Scean Barnswell,

who represents the Hayes Division in the parish, was travelling with his wife and actively discussing circulating reports of the missing child when fate intervened.

COUNCILLOR’S RECOUNTING

“By the time I reached Glenmuir Road and turned on to the Bustamante Highway, I saw the man walking with the child in a westerly direction. I was travelling easterly,” Barnswell told The Gleaner .

“I said to my wife, ‘Nuh the child that in the St Thomas More Prep uniform?’ She asked if I was sure, and I told her, ‘Yes, and even if it wasn’t her, him haffi tell me where the child come from.’ ”

Acting without hesitation, the councillor said he turned his vehicle around, blocked the man’s path, exited the vehicle, and confronted him. He said the suspect attempted to flee but was overpowered and the child rescued.

Barnswell said he alerted the police, who arrived shortly after, and both the man and the child were turned over to the lawmen.

The councillor disclosed that the suspect later claimed that he had been sent to the school for the child by his cousin.

Themanremainedinpolicecustody up to last night as investigations into the incident continued.

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