A chef who is accused of killing his son during a dispute over lunch money was on Friday denied bail when he appeared in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court.

Ian Brown, 45, of Lissant Road, Kingston Central, is charged for the murder of his 16-year-old son, Ian Brown.

Allegations are that on January 3, Brown’s son went to visit him at his premises at Lissant Road for lunch money. An argument developed and Brown reportedly used a blunt object to hit his son in his head.

The son started vomiting as a result of the injury and was unconscious for a while. Brown then contacted his daughter in Olympic Gardens for her to come and take her brother to the hospital.

Brown’s son was taken to the Kingston Public Hospital and died the following day.

The investigating officer told Chat! that the postmortem report showed that a blunt object had been used to smash the head causing brain injuries.

However, Brown’s attorney Franklin Halliburton, who admitted that his client’s son had approached him for money, refuted claims that Brown had hit his son in the head causing his death.

“Your honour, it is true that he visited on the premises for money but my instructions are that the father left and went to retrieve the money at a ATM and when he returned his son told him that he was not feeling well and he accompanied him to take a taxi,” Halliburton said.

He also told the court that when his client returned he saw the place in a particular state.

“Your Honour we are saying that we don’t know has he got injured,” Halliburton said.

However, the investigating officer, who is yet to ascertain the type of weapon that was used, said the accused, when cautioned, had admitted that he hit his son but did not know he would have died.

The officer also informed the court that Brown’s son had told a nurse that his father had hit him in the head while he was in the hospital.

However, Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey told the lawyer that the offense was too serious to consider bail.

“I am not granting him bail, that is a mad man’s behaviour,” she said.

The judge also stated that while Brown may have not injured his child, his failure to take him to the hospital on time may have also resulted in his death.

The accused, who was remanded in custody, is to return to court on February 25.

—Tanesha Mundle