Beaten unconscious

A father who was cleared last week of sexually assaulting his four-year-old son was reportedly beaten unconscious following his arrest in 2022 after a cop read out loud the disturbing allegations made against him in front of other inmates, a family member has charged.

The incident happened on February 17, 2022 at the St Ann’s Bay Police Station in St Ann, according to statements the exonerated father and his mother gave to police at the Inspectorate and Professional Standards Oversight Bureau (IPROB), which investigates misconduct by cops.

The Sunday Gleaner will refer to the father as ‘John Doe’ and his mother as ‘Jane Doe’. Their real names are being withheld to protect the identity of the child.

The jailhouse beat down is part of the trauma John Doe, 43, has had to endure since he went to the Family Court to compel his son’s mother – his former high school sweetheart – to allow him to be part of the child’s life, his mother claimed.

John Doe walked free from the St Ann Circuit Court last Tuesday, ending a month-long trial on charges of grievous sexual assault and child abuse.

The acquittal came after a last-minute application by his attorney, Oswest Senior-Smith, for permission to reopen his case because of new evidence that came to his attention.

The request was granted by the presiding judge, who, up to that point in the trial, had already heard closing arguments from Senior-Smith and prosecutors and was in the process of reviewing the evidence, handing the case to the seven-member jury for their verdict.

The judge, in a rare exercise of judicial discretion, withdrew the case from jurors after hearing the fresh evidence and directed them to return a verdict of not guilty, agreeing with Senior Smith that no jury, properly directed, could convict John Doe on the evidence that was before the court.

“He cried for a while even when we got home. He just went into his room, sat down there and he was still crying when I got there,” Jane Doe revealed during a interview with The Sunday Gleaner last Thursday, recounting his reaction to the not guilty verdict.

“He said, ‘Mommy, look how long it tek fi dem realise say dem telling lies on me’,” she added, describing their ordeal as “trauma”.

Jane Doe believes the prosecution of her son was set in motion because he went to the Family Court to get visitation rights for his son.

“She started hiding the baby and we were not able to see the child any at all and as soon as we took her to Family Court and the judge gave us visitation with the child, that’s when the allegations came up,” she claimed.

John Doe was apprehended at his home about 3:30 a.m. on February 15, 2022 and taken to the station, where cops told him he would be charged with grievous sexual assault and child abuse involving his then four-year-old son, according to his statement to IPROB.

At the time, he had already obtained an order from the Family Court that gave him custody of the child on Saturdays, but claimed that the boy’s mother repeatedly failed to comply.

Just over a month before his arrest, John Doe went back to the Family Court and obtained another order that the four-year-old was to be delivered to him on January 9, 2022, according to court documents and his attorney.

Two days before she was to comply with the order, his former spouse took the child to the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse, where the allegations were made against John Doe.

The 43-year-old father, who has sickle cell disease, indicated in his statement to IPROB that a female cop, standing in a passage near his cell, called out his son’s name and enquired if he knew that person.

“I am going to charge you today,” he quoted the female cop as saying after he acknowledged that the name she called was his son.

“What am I being charged for?” he responded, according to the statement.

“She said ‘because you kick the child in his mouth and let your mommy tape it up and that the child said that I put my penis in his mouth. This was done in the hearing of other prisoners,” he complained while protesting his innocence.

During the trial, prosecutors, citing a report made to the police by the child’s mother, claimed that the father placed a piece of tape over his son’s mouth, kicked him in the mouth, then placed his penis in it, according to documents seen by The Sunday Gleaner.

John Doe has “resolutely” denied the allegations, testifying during the trial that the boy fell while running on a wet floor that was being mopped and hit his mouth, resulting in minor injuries, including bleeding from the mouth.

John Doe said after the female cop read the allegations aloud he heard one of the prisoners shout, “A dat di bwoy a gwaan wid?”

He said immediately he became “fearful” for his life “because the prisoners want (sic) to beat me up because of the uproar they were making”.

The 43-year-old said later that day, while he was in a passageway with other inmates, one of them attacked him and slapped him in the face, causing “my head to slap up in the wall” and a swelling to the left side of his face.

According to Jane Doe, her son was beaten unconscious and later hospitalised for four days, “vomiting and passing blood through his stool.

“And when the police were called and told that he was unconscious and that they need to take him to the hospital, the police who was in charge of the guardroom told them that they must give him medicine and mek him lay down, him soon feel better,” she claimed.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Clifford Blake, who heads IPROB, was unable to provide an update on the investigation, indicating to The Sunday Gleaner on Friday that he was “currently out of office”.

“I will respond to you during the course of next week,” he said.

Cops reading out the allegations against an accused person in the presence of other prisoners is not uncommon practice, a senior law enforcement insider revealed.

The more common practice, according to the insiders, is to outline the allegations and lay charges after a question-and-answer session “which allows for some privacy”.

The insider frowned against the practice of detailing certain allegations in front of other prisoners, asserting that cops are aware or ought to be aware of the culture in Jamaica’s prison system and lockups, where persons accused of crimes involving women, children and homosexuality are often attacked.

“It is known, that is notorious so this would be a very egregious one to be discussing before others,” the insider told The Sunday Gleaner, making reference to John Doe’s case and the allegations levelled against him.

“If this wasn’t deliberate, it was reckless.”

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com