Judge: You pretended to love the child

A MORUGA man was found guilty in the San Fernando Criminal High Court of unlawfully killing his two-year-old step-daughter and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment with hard labour. “You pretended to love the child, but you did not,” Justice Herbert Volney told accused Justin Dillon Diaz before sentencing him for killing Kesi Greene. “You got frustrated and you beat up the child and you killed her. You wanted to walk out of here a free man?” the judge asked as he passed sentence on the 23-year-old unemployed chef of Bonyun Trace, St Mary’s Village, Moruga.

Diaz was on trial before Justice Volney and a nine-member jury in the San Fernando Criminal Assizes for unlawfully killing Greene on September 8, 2000.  The State’s case was led by assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard, while Indra Ramoutar-Liverpool appeared for Diaz. Diaz claimed he loved the child and would not have beaten her but Justice Volney said it was evident from the pathologist’s testimony that the child was cuffed in the stomach within a few hours of death. The post-mortem showed that Kesi suffered bleeding in her abdomen, lungs, kidney and pancreas and died of blunt traumatic injuries to the abdomen caused by blows with severe force.

Two statements which Diaz gave to police showed two versions of the events leading to Kesi’s death. In one statement, Diaz said he was bathing the child in the bathroom when he pulled her too hard and she fell and hit a plastic bucket. Diaz claimed he the police tricked him into signing a statement in which it was said that little Kesi was going to run toward the back step again and Diaz hit her with the back of his hand between the chest and belly which caused her to fall to the ground. Justice Volney criticised Diaz for saying the police and the Justice of the Peace lied about him, adding that Diaz should take responsibility for his actions. Diaz was initially charged with murder, but when he was committed to stand trial the charge was reduced to manslaughter. His attorney submitted in mitigation that he had spent two years in prison after being arrested.