Child speechless after severe beating
-family wants couple arrested
Stabroek News
July 15, 2004

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Ever since 13-year-old Ewart George was severely beaten on Tuesday by a couple who accused him of interfering with their seven-year-old daughter, he has not spoken to his relatives, and his mother says she is worried about this development.

Alexis George yesterday said that she tried all day yesterday to speak to the boy, now in the Georgetown Hospital, but he has not answered her and she feels that it is due to shock from the incident. The woman said she has spoken to the nurses and they reported that they would monitor him. When spoken to, the child would shake his head in answer, but he is not using his voice.

Meanwhile, the police have not yet arrested the man or his wife in relation to the incident. The mother said she reported the matter to the Sparendaam Police Station and officers visited the area but the husband was not at home and the officers did not hold the wife. They visited the hospital but could not take a statement from the child since he wouldn't speak.

The child suffered a gaping wound to his head, as a result of a blow from a spade, and other injuries about his body from the severe beating.

His mother had told this newspaper that she had gone to follow her sister to get a bus and upon her return she saw her son with blood all over him and when she went to the home of the couple the husband told her if he had a gun her son would have been dead. They reported that they observed her son interfering with their daughter while they were in a house that is used by children to play.

The woman said her son has denied the claim and he told her that he was called into the house and the couple locked their doors and dealt him a beating. He somehow managed to escape but a neighbour locked the gate to the yard and the couple continued to beat him while some persons in the area looked on. A resident said she was the one who pulled the child away from the couple.

Yesterday, angry relatives said they could not understand how adults could be so cruel to a child. They noted that if what the couple said was true then they should have taken him to the police and let the law deal with it.

"But we ent believe wah they saying, this boy does deh where lots of girls deh and he never do something like that. They gat to go before the court and prove dah to the court. Why deh ent bring the child to the hospital?" one relative asked.