Trinidad: Mom pleads guilty to cruelty against 2 year-old son

Jillian Noel at the San Fernando High Court after she pleaded guilty to a charge of cruelty to a child, yesterday.

(Trinidad Guardian) The moth­er of a two-year-old boy who was be­ing abused and had sev­er­al in­juries about his body has plead­ed guilty to cru­el­ty to a child.

Jil­lian Noel, 49, is ex­pect­ed to be sen­tenced by Jus­tice Kathy Ann Wa­ter­man-Latchoo on No­vem­ber 25.

The woman was charged in 2008 af­ter in­juries were dis­cov­ered on the child’s body. A med­ical re­port stat­ed that the in­juries were like­ly in­flict­ed by cig­a­rette burns, fin­ger­nails scratch­es and a blunt ob­ject us­ing mild to mod­er­ate blunt force.

The court was told that the child who is now about 13-years-old does not live with her.

She plead­ed guilty on Tues­day be­fore Wa­ter­man-Latchoo in the San Fer­nan­do First Crim­i­nal Court. Pre­sent­ing the facts to the court, state at­tor­ney Ka­tr­isha Am­brose said days af­ter the child was born he be­gan liv­ing at a chil­dren’s home in Point Fortin un­til Sep­tem­ber 15, 2007 when his moth­er took him to live with her and his four sib­lings at Pep­per Vil­lage, Fyz­abad. One of the vol­un­teers at the home kept in con­tact with the ac­cused and would take the child to the clin­ic for his ap­point­ments. In Feb­ru­ary 2008 when he went to spend the week­end at the vol­un­teer’s home she no­ticed that he had a cut un­der his foot.

Then in May 2008 she went to vis­it the child at his home.

 
She ob­served that he was drag­ging, had a burn on his in­dex fin­ger, his leg was black and blue and he had a fever. The ac­cused told the vol­un­teer that he broke his leg.

She of­fered to take the child to the hos­pi­tal but the ac­cused said she would do it her­self. In Ju­ly 2008 a sec­re­tary at the chil­dren’s home picked up the child at his home to take him to a fun day at a pri­ma­ry school. She no­ticed he had scars and bruis­es about his body.

The sec­re­tary who was con­cerned that child al­so seemed with­drawn and sad, spoke to PC Karl Tay­lor then at­tached the Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice who was at the event. When she took the child back home, she asked Noel if she could take him to the chil­dren’s home to spend some time with the oth­er chil­dren and she agreed. Cpl Wor­rell and WPC Skeete of the Com­mu­ni­ty Po­lice vis­it­ed the home and the child was tak­en for a med­ical ex­am­i­na­tion and treat­ment at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

The child had mul­ti­ple in­juries, in­clud­ing mul­ti­ple cir­cum­fer­en­tial scars over his mouth, chest, right leg and but­tocks. He al­so had sev­er­al frac­tures of the sec­ond, third and fourth metacarpals of the right hand, as well as, mul­ti­ple scratch-like marks about his body. The child was dis­charged from the hos­pi­tal the fol­low­ing month and placed in the chil­dren’s home.

Noel is out on bail.

Her at­tor­ney Mar­tin Joseph is ex­pect­ed to sub­mit his plea in mit­i­ga­tion on the ad­journed date.