A mother who was arrested and charged after the police found her eight-year-old physically deformed daughter naked and tethered by the neck in a hole in the ground near her house in Bath, St. Thomas, is to reappear in the Yallahs Resident Magistrate's Court on February 7.

Doris Henry, shopkeeper, of Ginger Hall, near Bath, is charged under the Child Care and Protection Act with cruelty to the child.

The woman first appeared before Resident Magistrate Frank Williams in the Yallahs Resident Magistrate's Court on December 7 and was remanded until yesterday.

RM Williams offered her bail yesterday in the sum of $150,000 with a surety to return to court on February 7.

Police investigation

It is being alleged that on December 2, police from the Community Services Office at the Morant Bay Police Station, acting on information, went to Henry's two-storey building where she lives. When they questioned her, she told them that she had four children - two boys and two girls, aged 18, 16 and three years old, and one just nine months old.

When the police heard a child crying at the back of the premises and went to investigate, they found the little girl in the hole. She was naked, trembling and had a length of electrical wire around her neck.

Henry ran away after the child was found but the police held her the next day.

RM Williams ordered that Henry should undergo psychiatric evaluation and has also ordered a social inquiry report.

All four children have since been placed in the custody of the state.

barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com