By PAVEL BAILEY
A POLICE Sergeant gave testimony in Magistrate’s Court yesterday in the ongoing Children’s Hostel trial where child abuse has been alleged.
Sergeant 3407 Kevin Deveaux testified of his involvement in the matter before Magistrate Kendra Kelly.
The six former female employees at Children’s Emergency Hostel were present for his testimony against them. The accused women are Eloise Canter, Carmetta Woods, Natasha Pratt, Occonelle Gordon, Sabrina Smith and Shawn Seymour.
However, Seymour is the only one accused of failing to report the abuse of the children — ranging in age from seven to 11-years-old — to the appropriate officials on the day in question.
The remaining former staff members are accused of unlawfully physically abusing nine boys and two girls in a way that caused them unnecessary suffering on September 22, 2020.
The accused were charged last year after police launched an investigation at the home following a surveillance video that went viral on social media, showing several children being beaten at the facility.
In his testimony, Sgt Deveaux, an eight-year veteran of CID’s Tech Section, said that acting on information he went to the hostel on McKinney Drive. There, he spoke to the home manager, a Ms Gibson, and viewed two videos on her laptop of the incident. He then told the court that he downloaded the videos on the flash drive that he had in court.
Ian Cargill, one of the accused’s lawyers, objected to the videos being shown in court on the basis that it was made by a third party (that is Ms Gibson). As such, he argued, that Ms Gibson would have to be in court for this footage to be shown.
With the magistrate agreeing with Mr Cargill’s argument, Prosecutor Inspector Pyfrom went on to ask Sgt Deveaux if he recalled what he did on February 5, 2021.
While the police sergeant said that he vaguely remembered the details of that date he managed to recall that he went to EyeWitness News to speak to their then production manager, Clint Watson.
There, he received a flash drive containing two videos of EWN news stories covering the incident. Sgt Deveaux then burned the videos to a DVD upon his return to CID. This DVD was then labeled E News and identified with his signature. They were shown in court.
When asked what he did with the originals of the information he gathered on the case, Sgt Deveaux said he gave the original copies to Inspector Bowls.
Sgt Deveaux and other witnesses are expected to return to court to give further testimony on the matter today.
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