Mother jailed for burning six-year-old son with iron

A 23-year-old unemployed mother of four was yesterday jailed for one year for burning her six-year-old son with an iron.

Takisha DaSouza, a resident of Lower Questelles, cried as she walked back to the prisoners’ bench after pleading guilty to grievous bodily harm before magistrate Rechanne Browne-Matthias {{more}}at the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court.

“I didn’t know the iron was hot. I did it to try to scare him. I didn’t mean to do it,” DaSouza said, explaining that she did it after her son defecated on himself.

The visibly disturbed magistrate described DaSouza’s act as “horrific and barbaric.”

According to the facts, on May 29, at about 8:25 a.m., DaSouza was preparing her son for school when he defecated on himself.

Annoyed, DaSouza plugged in an iron and burned the child three times on his left hand and on his abdomen.

The court heard that the incident was initially kept a secret and it was only after neighbours alerted the police that she was arrested.

The child is still warded at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital suffering from first and second degree burns.

“This is a wicked and barbaric act. It is not to say that she flogged the child, but she burned him,” senior prosecutor in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions Adolphus Delpeche said.

The mother, who disclosed that she has a three-month-old baby, said she was not frustrated at the time, but noted that her son was in the habit of messing on himself.

“You were not frustrated. You knew what you were doing. You are going to Fort (Fort Charlotte) today. That must be crazy. You shouldn’t even be thinking about having children. This is wicked. You don’t scare children with an iron. Children need love,” an irate magistrate Browne-Matthias stated.

Browne-Matthias, who also said DaSouza’s action was “cruelty to the highest degree,” noted that the young mother needed love also, but was not going to get it from the court.(KW)