Sascha Wil­son

A woman whose son was tak­en away from her af­ter she plead­ed guilty to burn­ing his hand was laud­ed by a mag­is­trate yes­ter­day for at­tend­ing coun­selling ses­sions at the Na­tion­al Fam­i­ly Ser­vices.Ali­cia Mike, 33, told Mag­is­trate Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates' Court that she had at­tend­ed four ses­sions since last No­vem­ber and had an­oth­er ap­point­ment on Feb­ru­ary 28.The mag­is­trate told her it ap­peared that she was com­mit­ted to com­plet­ing the ses­sions."I laud you for your ef­forts," she said.

The mag­is­trate al­so ad­vised her against pun­ish­ing her chil­dren when she was an­gry."The pun­ish­ment will al­ways be too se­vere...When you get up­set you must step away," she added.She said she was not say­ing to "let bad be­hav­iour slide," but some­times "you come down too hard." "It will break a child's spir­it and make the sit­u­a­tion worse," the mag­is­trate said.She told her the ses­sions were not meant to pun­ish her, but to al­ter her be­hav­iour, for her sake and her child's sake.Mike, who changed her plea to guilty last No­vem­ber, had burnt her son's left hand over a stove af­ter beat­ing him with a belt at their Spring­land, Gas­par­il­lo, home on May 26, 2008.

She had ac­cused the child, then sev­en years old, of steal­ing. The fol­low­ing day, a teacher ob­served the burns and con­tact­ed the po­lice.The child spent two weeks in hos­pi­tal, nurs­ing first-de­gree burns.Mike was charged by PC Ramdeo Seep­aul.Af­ter learn­ing that the child was still with her, Ram­sumair-Hinds or­dered that he be placed in the care of an aunt. He had been stay­ing with his aunt since last No­vem­ber.

The mag­is­trate sug­gest­ed that the child al­so re­ceive coun­selling.Mike said, how­ev­er, that the child would meet with a guid­ance of­fi­cer every Tues­day at his school.The mag­is­trate asked that the guid­ance of­fi­cer ap­pear in court on the next oc­ca­sion.The mat­ter was ad­journed to April 4.