PM Condemns Brutal Beating of 14-Year-Old Girl

Prime Minister the Most. Hon. Andrew Holness has condemned the recent brutal beating of a 14-year-old girl in Denbigh, Clarendon.

Mr. Holness said the incident is a sad reflection on the society and is an illustration of the challenges the country face in tackling not only the quantity, but also the severity of crimes.

“I was very distressed by this kind of savage violence being unleashed on a child by adults who seem to have no faculty of understanding that this is something that should not be done,” he stated.

“And even after they were being taken away, they seem to be as if they did nothing wrong. It’s confounding to me how people can be so brutish to each other, and it is worrisome,” Mr. Holness added.

The Prime Minister was speaking with the media, following a tour of flood damaged areas in Portland on January 4.

Mr. Holness noted that the incident reinforces the need for an increased social response to violence, while adding that the society has normalize issues such as the beating of children and intimate partner violence.

“No amount of policing is going to solve those issues, and that is why the Government, having made the massive investments in the police, the military and the security architecture, we are now shifting to build out a parallel system of delivering the social services that are needed to treat with violence,” the Prime Minister stated.

Charges have been laid against seven persons, including four teenagers, in connection with the December 30 brutal beating of the teenaged girl.