Former employee details multiple instances of child abuse at MoBay preschool

A former caregiver who videotaped the clobbering of a three-year-old baby at a St James early childhood institution says she witnessed the beating and abuse of at least seven other children while employed there.

The New Discoveries Daycare and Preschool, owned and operated by retired teacher Marcia Whyte and her daughter, in Catherine Mount, Montego Bay, was ordered closed by Minister of Education, Fayval Williams on Friday. The school has been operating at the location since 2021.

Latoya Gray-Allen, who worked at the educational institution for a year, released a series of voice notes Saturday afternoon stating that children who could not speak well were often beaten.

She told The Gleaner children were beaten on the soles of their feet so the abuse could not be detected.

Gray-Allen was fired in December 2022, but said she started videotaping the acts of abuse on the babies because “what I witnessed could not continue”.

One of those videos went viral last Thursday after it was released on social media, showing the beating of the three-year-old with a ruler in a bathroom, while another child was seen lying on the bare tiles.

The preschool and day care, which has 63 children enrolled, will not be reopening anytime soon, says the chairman of the Early Childhood Commission, Trisha Williams-Singh, who noted that personnel from the Commission did their due diligence and uncovered some startling information.

She said the Commission was able to confirm the things seen in the video, pointing out to The Gleaner, that the Early Childhood Act of 2005 was clear. Section 16 speaks to corporal punishment, which shall not be inflicted on a child in an early childhood institution, Williams-Singh reminded.

She added that immediately after the Commission received the report of the abuse, an inspector visited the school.

When The Gleaner asked the former caregiver, why she did not alert the authorities before, she said she was scared, but she gave hints to some of the parents.

She said she released the video after hearing that another child was beaten recently. “I cried when I left the school, because all I could remember was how she would pull on the ears of one of the children, or his hair and hand.”

She said another child was punished by being locked in the bathroom.

-Janet Silvera

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