Dear Editor,
I harbour the deepest respect for the magistracy, and in particular those officers sitting in the criminal jurisdiction. Their services tend to be taken for granted although they daily protect the society from the delicts of ordinary men, deciding on summary trials, making almost assembly-line decisions in relation to the granting of bail, placing defendants on remand and generally justifying the activity of the police who present the charges for the general preservation of social order. They are indeed the front-line sociologists operative in our community, and we rely upon the wisdom of their decisions. And so I honour their breed. But every now and then they seem to get something wrong.
In Stabroek News of Saturday June 23, there appeared a report under the headline ‘Father jailed after beating promiscuous daughter.’ It was well presented, but it disturbed me, and I read it again. Very simply a father reacted harshly against his 14-year-old daughter whose sexual exploits with more than one adult man were not denied.
She was still attending school, she lived at his home and would actually sleep out in her sexual pursuits.He whipped her with a belt and apparently with an electric cord. At the trial before the Magistrate he expressed tearful contrition over his action. His claim that he did not ordinarily wax violent at home was not denied by the girl’s older female relatives nor by the complainant Child Care Protection Agency. He had two other children in the home, whom he never abused. He just could not tolerate the conduct of his 14-year-old daughter. Hence the punishment which he admitted meting out, and which may have included a box or two to the face.
The goodly Magistrate thought his punishment of his daughter too severe. She sentenced him to six weeks imprisonment. Yes, six weeks!
On the simple facts of the case I consider such a sentence to be extremely harsh. There is indeed an epidemic of domestic violence afflicting our land and I support every action by the judicial bench, the police, governmental agencies, religious bodies and NGOs to eradicate this evil from the Guyanese behaviour. But we must be careful to discriminate between violence born of ordinary human antagonism and a case of discipline of the type cited above.
Here is the incident of a caring parent in a state of exasperation speaking the only language he knows – physical punishment as deterrent from the disgusting behaviour of a recalcitrant 14-year-old. Did he over-react? It is all well and good for us to sit in our offices or cosy drawing rooms and indulge in the sophisticated condemnation of the father’s behaviour. We have not endured his domestic parental trial and cannot be sure of the course we might adopt when confronted by such behaviour on the part of a recalcitrant 14-year-old child. Surely there was available to the good Magistrate the imposition of a bond for good behaviour on the part of that father and the court’s condemnation of the act of extreme violence may have been reflected in a token custodial sentence of one week.
I know little about court procedure but still hope that some device exists whereby the sentence may be revisited with a view to some more plausible outcome of the matter.
Yours faithfully,
Leon O Rockcliffe
