Top Story : BarbadianTeacher gets 18 months for assaulting pupil
Teacher gets 18 months for assaulting pupil
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Parents put their trust in teachers and expect them to protect and look after their children while at school, a High Court judge said yesterday.
So the actions of teacher/teacher’s aide Rico Renaldo Edwards, who pushed his hand down the pants of a then 11-year-old boy and squeezed his testicles, was a serious breach of that trust and was deserving of jail, declared Justice Pamela Beckles.
As a result, she sentenced him to 18 months in prison for indecent assault.
Edwards, 25, of Sargeant Park, Foul Bay, St Philip, was back in the No. 5 Supreme Court for sentencing after he was found guilty, at an earlier Session of the Continuous Sittings, of indecently assaulting the boy on January 7, 2016.
Matter worrisome
The matter was prosecuted by Principal Crown Counsel Krystal Delaney, while Edwards was represented by attorney Martie Garnes.
Justice Beckles said the matter was especially worrisome because it involved a teacher/teacher’s aide and a student. “Teachers are considered to hold a unique position of trust, care and authority due to their influence on children and young people through education and learning. Parents put their trust in teachers and expect them to respect their children,” she told Edwards. “Your conduct is complete departure from the standard expected of a teacher and amounts to a serious breach of trust in that you failed to protect the complainant who was in your charge. “This court considers this a fundamental breach of trust in that you were obligated to protect this student and maintain public confidence in the reputation of the teaching profession and you failed.”
The judge, as she stressed that sentencing was not an exact science and that each case had to be determined on its own peculiar circumstances, noted she had considered all the other sentencing options available – a compensation order; a suspended sentence; a bond or probation.
She said she felt that none “in the circumstances . . . would do justice to this case”.
Justice Beckles told Edwards she had considered his previous clean record and good pre-sentencing report which deemed him as having a low risk of reoffending.
However, she said she had also considered the seriousness and nature of the offence, the trust which had been placed in Edwards and which he had breached, and the impact the offence has had on the boy.
The judge ordered that the 117 days spent on remand be taken into consideration and, as a result, he will serve the remaining 431 days.
During the trial, the boy, now 14, said he was at a piano lesson when Edwards asked him a question which he kept getting wrong. The teacher’s aide was sitting on the piano stool while he was standing at the side. The boy said the teacher’s aide “eventually stuck his hand in my pants and squeezed my testicles”.
He said the man’s hand was in his pants for about two or three minutes. The boy said he went home and was talking to his older brother about the incident. He then told his mother who had overheard the conversation. In his defence, Edwards said his hand accidentally touched the boy’s groin area as he was unbuckling the boy’s belt. He said he was unbuckling it as a threat to get the boy to “come out of his shell” and to answer questions correctly.
He said the boy stepped back and he raised his hand to grab him and pull him forward. “In the action of raising, my hand accidentally struck his groin area. Then I grabbed his belt and pulled him towards me.”
by Heather-Lynn Evanson
(Nation Newspaper, Barbados)
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