$1,500 for lashing child

A man who said he only gave his five-year-old son three lashes for disobeying him, pleaded guilty to a charge of assault and bodily harm on Tuesday, August 25 at the Kingstown Magistrates Court.{{more}}

Senior Magistrate Donald Browne placed Cosbert Cumberbatch of Upper Cane Hall on a six-month bond in the sum of $1,500 for his actions. In breach of that bond, Cumberbatch will spend six months in prison.

Information surfacing at the court stated that between July 7 and August 13, 2009, Cumberbatch collected his son from his mother to spend some time with him at his home. One day, Cumberbatch left the child at home with his stepmother and when he returned home, he saw the young child drinking dirty water.

Cumberbatch took a leather belt and beat the child repeatedly about his body for his actions. When the child was taken back to his mother some time after, she noticed the marks on his skin and said he constantly complained of pain. The boy was carried to the Hospital for medical treatment and it was revealed that he had multiple contusions to the neck and back.

Cumberbatch said he warned the child before not to meddle in the water because people dumped the faeces in the river. “I lef him wid he stepmother and when I reach back home I meet him drinking the water and I only give him three lash,” Cumberbatch said. He added that he spent over $120 at the Doctor after his son drank the water.

A visibly irate Magistrate Browne did not mask his emotions, and chided Cumberbatch for his actions. “Is fathers like you that cause children to turn criminals,” Browne asserted. “You lick the living daylights of him…he’s only a young child, you don’t do that to children,” the outspoken Magistrate continued.

Instead of flogging him, Browne told Cumberbatch that he should have spoken to his son about not drinking the water.(KW)