A 31-year-old maxi-taxi driver has been detained by police after he inflicted a brutal beating on two-year-old girl after she refused to eat a sandwich. The man, a father of four young children, was arrested at his Caroni Private Road, Caroni, home, on Friday morning after the child's mother learnt of the attack. He remained at the Cunupia Police Station up to late yesterday, where he was charged under the Section 3 of Children's Act for the assault of the child.
Under the act, a person convicted of child cruelty is liable to a fine of up to $10,000 or up to two years in prison. The man will appear before a Chaguanas Magistrate later today to answer to the charge which was laid by PC Ronnie-Lee Gopaul. In an interview at her Mercer Road, Diego Martin, home yesterday, the child's mother Rhonda Samaroo told the T&T Guardian that she would normally leave her daughter in the relative's care, as she worked a night shift to support herself and her three children.
When a news team visited her yesterday afternoon, Isabella was seen playing with her mother and siblings. Her face and lips remained swollen and discoloured by the bruises she sustained in the attack. Samaroo said she dropped Isabella at the man's home on last Thursday night. "On Friday morning, the man's (name withheld) sister call me and tell me to call him because it have an emergency," Samaroo said.
She said when she contacted the man, he said there was no emergency, which made her suspicious. She then decided to travel to his home to see her daughter. "When I saw her, she looked scared and frightened. Imagine, the man stand up there smiling and eating a sandwich while my daughter mouth and face bloody and swollen," Samaroo said. Samaroo contacted police, who took her and her daughter to hospital.
She said the suspect admitted to hitting the toddler once in the face. However, police sources said the injuries to the child were too severe to have come from one strike. Sgt Ramjitsingh of the Central Division led the probe into the incident.
