‘Smell at Qahal Yahweh facility was like rotting food’

WESTERN BUREAU:

THE PREMISES of the controversial Qahal Yahweh religious group, whose members are charged with several counts of breaching the Child Care and Protection Act and the Education Act, had a smell of rotting food, dirty clothes in various rooms, and the children at the site were unclean.

That was the testimony of one of two officers from the Child Protection and Family Services Agency [CPFSA] in the St James Parish Court on Monday, at the beginning of the long-awaited trial of 16 of the religious group’s members.

Those on trial are: Christopher Anderson, Nekeisha Harding, Derrick Clarke, Roanalee Maitland, Alicia Meadley, Fabian Nelson, Jodian Spence, Jose Foskin, Oral Spence, Raymon Letman, Ingrid Williams, Omar Johnson, Jevaughn Johnson, Franchain Paris, Vera Woolery, and Melisha Thompson.

The witness told presiding judge Kaysha Grant-Pryce what she saw of the property when she and other CPFSA members went there in the early hours of June 7, 2023, when 23 children were taken and placed in state care.

That operation preceded the arrest and charge of several of the group’s members on June 30 that year, amid allegations of child abuse and assaults taking place at the premises.

“A few Jamaica Constabulary Force members asked us to enter the property, and when I went inside the physical plant of the property, the building, on my going inside there were several rooms. In all of the rooms there were bunk beds, they had soiled clothes thrown on the beds and on the floor, there were buckets and basins filled with water in the bathrooms, and the ceiling was damp and there were visible wires from the ceiling,” the witness testified.

“There was a smell that was coming from the entire property, the bathrooms, the bedrooms, and also from a general gathering area … it was an unpleasant smell. To describe the unpleasant smell, it would be of rotting food,” the witness added.

“The children residents there, at the time when I saw them, they seemed malnourished, and their hair was unkempt in terms of the females. There was an unusual aroma coming from the children that would indicate personal hygiene was not being practised.”

BAILS EXTENDED

The witness further testified that she interviewed the residents individually in the compound’s gathering area and that she did not deem the premises to be a safe place for the children to be kept, resulting in their removal.

However, during the evidence-in-chief, King’s Counsel Peter Champagnie, who is representing all of the defendants, objected to the prosecution’s attempts to ask the witness if she could identify any of the defendants.

“Dock identification is dangerous, especially if there is nothing to support the correctness of it. Even if you go by the narrative of this witness, she says she interviewed a few witnesses, [but] she does not say how many,” Champagnie argued.

Meanwhile, the second CPFSA officer testified that she was given several of the children’s birth certificates by persons at the compound, one of which was a birth certificate supplied by defendant Franchain Paris, which she subsequently photocopied. Under further questioning from the prosecutor, she indicated that she would be able to recognise Paris, pointing out the defendant sitting among the other accused persons in the courtroom.

The trial is slated to resume on June 6, as Champagnie will be engaged in the soon-to-begin trial concerning the alleged 2010 murder of businessman Keith Clarke.

As a result, the 16 Qahal Yahweh defendants had their bails extended to that date.In addition to the 16 defendants now on trial, another defendant, Rebecca Gallimore, was also charged in relation to the incident at the Qahal Yahweh compound. However, she was not in court on Monday as she had been given a probation order and the case against her dismissed on a previous court date.

Prior to that, Neil Spence, a defendant who voluntarily turned himself in to the police in relation to the Qahal Yahweh incident, was brought before the St James Parish Court separately from the original group of defendants on July 19, 2023, at which time he pleaded guilty to assault.

Spence, who was represented at that time by attorney Adrian Dayes, is currently serving a non-custodial sentence in relation to the assault charge.

The Qahal Yahweh group was previously placed in the spotlight in 2019, when the police removed six children, including a pregnant 16-year-old, from the compound of the group’s church between October 31 and November 5 that year. The Qahal Yahweh church was under investigation at that time in relation to allegations that the group was conducting child marriages, as well as being involved in human trafficking, abduction, child abuse and sexual assault.

christopher.thomas@gleanerjm.com