JOSHUA’S MOM DENIED VISITS
A MAGISTRATE yesterday ordered that the mother and step-father of six-year-old Joshua McKenzie have no access to the boy who has been sent to the St Mary’s Children’s Home in Tacarigua.
Magistrate Gail Gonzales also ordered that the couple’s two other children be placed in the care of their grandmother and that the couple be given only supervised access to them. The couple, Joshua’s mother, Nadine John, 23, and his step-father Collins Stephen, 32, have been charged with causing grievous bodily harm to the child whose right hand was allegedly held over a lighted stove. They were not called upon to plead when they appeared in the Arima Magistrates Court yesterday. The incident is alleged to have taken place on April 5, 2003. John and Stephen were granted $50,000 bail each.
Joshua, who has been at the Paediatric Ward of the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex will remain at the Home until the end of the case. Attorneys Lal Krishna Doodnath and Albert Beckles represented John and Stephen respectively. Social worker Sita Beharry, who has been assigned to investigate the hand-burning incident and other alleged abuses against McKenzie, was in court yesterday. The charge against the couple of Heights of Guanapo, Arima, was laid by Constable Sheldon Sylvester of the Arima CID. Magistrate Gonzales made it clear to the couple and their attorneys that she was concerned about the welfare of John’s other two children and was granting them bail on certain conditions. She ordered that John’s two other children be sent to stay at the home of their grandmother Bernadine Garib. The Magistrate also ordered that the couple be allowed supervised visits to the two children but no access whatsoever to McKenzie. Supervised access, Newsday was told, means a social worker must be present whenever the couple visits the two children at Garib’s home.
The matter was adjourned to May 12. Prior to yesterday’s appearance before Magistrate Gonzales, the couple appeared before a Justice of the Peace on Wednesday. McKenzie suffered severe third degree burns to his right hand after allegedly being forced to keep it over a lighted stove. He suffered the abuse as punishment for coming home with his clothes dirty. Doctors at Mt Hope stated that if Joshua’s hand does not heal properly from burns, he may have to undergo skin graft surgery.
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"JOSHUA’S MOM DENIED VISITS"