One week af­ter a video show­ing a three-year-old be­ing hit on the head and cursed by a male rel­a­tive went vi­ral on so­cial me­dia, the man has been charged with cru­el­ty to a child.

The San­gre Grande man, who was not iden­ti­fied by the po­lice, is a close male rel­a­tive of the child.

He plead­ed not guilty to the charge of cru­el­ty to a child, con­trary to Sec­tion 4 of the Chil­dren’s Act 12 of 2012 when he ap­peared be­fore a San­gre Grande Mag­is­trate yes­ter­day.

He was ar­rest­ed on Sat­ur­day.

He was not grant­ed bail and has been re­mand­ed in cus­tody un­til he re­turns to court on Feb­ru­ary 10. 

The charge arose af­ter a video, show­ing the tod­dler sit­ting on a so­fa and be­ing asked re­peat­ed­ly by the man what she was eat­ing be­fore she was dragged off the so­fa and hit on the head, was post­ed on so­cial me­dia on Jan­u­ary 5.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) said the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit (CPU) start­ed its in­ves­ti­ga­tion the same day the video was post­ed.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the child’s home the fol­low­ing day and our news team was told the man was known to abuse the child and her sib­lings.

The TTPS said yes­ter­day the in­ves­ti­ga­tion was spear­head­ed by W/Supt (Ag) George, W/ASP Guy-Al­leyne, In­sp Bap­tiste and WPC Williams-James of the CPU.

The CPU said so far for the year, sev­en peo­ple were charged for breach­es of sex­u­al of­fences against chil­dren and one was charged for cru­el­ty to a child.