Boy badly beaten by stepdad over homework

A disc jockey of Sandy Bay will spend the next nine months behind bars for physically abusing his stepson.

Calvert ‘DJ Blackseran’ John, appeared before Magistrate Rickie Burnett at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court yesterday, charged with causing bodily harm to the seven-year-old boy.

The court heard that on Tuesday November 7, sometime after 4 pm, the child returned from school and met his step father at home.

John asked the boy to see his books. He was told that the boy had homework, but he did not know how to do it.

The step father then asked the boy what was he going to school for, before proceeding to the child’s room to get a brown leather belt to beat him.

The next day, when the boy attended school, the wounds on his body were noticed and the matter was reported to the police.

John told the court that he checks on the children after school and how could the child have homework and not know how to do it, as he attends school.

Magistrate Burnett told John, “There’s a difference between discipline and abuse; it is normal to go to school and not know how to do home work.”

The children’s mother is said to be a Guyanese woman who had left the state on Monday, November 6, leaving her two children, a boy and a girl, in John’s care until her return.

The two children appeared in court yesterday with their father Orlando Browne.

The female child told the court that her father had bought her a laptop and her step father took it, placed a password on it and uses it to play his music.

John rebutted saying that the children’s mother told him she bought the laptop and because it was just there not being used, he could use it.

Prosecutor Delroy Tittle told the court, “This is not a case of disciplining a child with the amount of injuries the child sustained, but a case of child abuse. A strong message must be sent to persons who think it’s okay to abuse children.”

Lawyer Ronald Marks was also present in court and addressed the matter.

“You could imagine what’s going through that father’s mind, it’s these kinds of things that cause death.”

The boy received a puncture to his head and bruises about various parts of his body.

Magistrate Burnett imposed a nine-month custodial sentence on the defendant.(CJ)