TT$80,000 bail for accused baby-biter

(Trinidad Express) The man accused of biting off chunks of flesh from the face and leg of his five-day-old daughter was yesterday granted bail by a Port of Spain magistrate after spending more than a month at the St Ann’s Hospital.

Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar granted bail in the sum of TT$80,000 to 24-year-old Jermour Noel when he reappeared before her in the Eighth Court yesterday.

Jermour Noel leaves the Port of Spain Magistrates' Court yesterday after he was granted $80,000 bail on a charge of biting the face and leg of his five-day-old daughter.
Jermour Noel leaves the Port of Spain Magistrates’ Court yesterday after he was granted $80,000 bail on a charge of biting the face and leg of his five-day-old daughter.

For the past six weeks, Noel had been at the St Ann’s Hospital undergoing mental evaluation. Ayers-Caesar was yesterday furnished with the findings of the tests before she granted bail.

Several conditions were however attached to the bail bond, one being that the test results stated that Noel needed to continue treatment at the mental outpatient clinic at the Port of Spain hospital.

Noel, who worked at FLOW cable company as a technician, was also ordered to not make any contact with either the child or her mother and report to the Carenage Police Station every Monday and Thursday.

He was also ordered to move out of his Coconut Drive, Morvant, apartment and move in with his mother at School Street, Carenage.

Ayers-Caesar said this was necessary as his mother was the one who would be securing his bail.

He was also required to move in with her on the basis of the findings of the mental tests.

“Based on what is in the report I would like for him to be monitored so that in the instance that something happens to him and he has to be hospitalised and cannot make it to court, someone can come to the court and explain his nonappearance,” she said.

Noel, who was represented by attorney Vitti Furlonge-Kelly, is charged with wounding with intent, the child on December 9 last year at the child’s home located at Smith Trace, Calvary Hill, East Dry River, Port of Spain.

He will return to court on February 20.