THE St Thomas woman who was seen on video beating her 12-year-old daughter with a machete and was sentenced in the St Thomas Parish Court yesterday, is pleading with fathers to support their children in order to ease the pressure on single mothers.

Doreen Dyer, 44, made the plea after she was sentenced to three years’ probation with parental counselling and anger management classes for the beating she inflicted on her daughter in 2016.

The video, which went viral, showed Dyer — who was dressed only in her underwear — slapping the girl with the machete while hurling expletives.

“I want the fathers them to take care of their kids, because probably if my babyfather was taking care of me and the kids, mi wouldn’t have to have that anger, ’cause nuff of the times when mi get anything, mi just have to carry it go home to give them.

“Mi go a my bed hungry. When I get a little money mi have to give them to keep it to go to school. Some of the time all two weeks, three weeks them nuh guh to school… if their father was there that wouldn’t happen,” Dyer explained outside the St Thomas Parish Court yesterday.

Dyer, while noting that she had to end her relationship with the children’s father, said all she wants is for her children to be successful.

“… Now mi have the twin, one go Seaforth [High School] and one go Morant [Bay High School] and mi want the best for them,” Dyer said. “…I don’t want them to come same like me; I want them to have [what I did not have].

“That is why mi always a try to push them, but them just stubborn,” Dyer told the Jamaica Observer.

The mother, who was remorseful throughout the hearing, recalled the day that she was captured on camera beating her child.

“I was washing, that is why you see mi so naked. I call her and told her to put the pan at the pipe so that I could wash what I had on so that they could dry. She start suck her teeth and start tell mi say she nah carry the pan with the clothes.

“She say she a go carry the one without the clothes. So mi say to her say, ‘If you carry that one me a go beat yu’, and she still carry it. So mi feel so upset to really know that is their clothes mi washing and she a go tell mi say she not doing it,” the mother said, adding that when she was a child she had to obey her mother.

Dyer, who was obviously relieved after yesterday’s sentencing, said, too, that she cried while the social enquiry report was being read.

“God is on my side. I give thanks to the judge and thanks to all who supported me from this happen until this finish,” Dyer said.

The media was not allowed inside the courtroom yesterday.

However, Dyer’s attorney, Bertram Anderson, said Parish Judge Luciana Jackson was pleased with the social enquiry report.

The lawyer also said he was happy with the decision of the court.

“I think the reasons given by the judge, they were sound, and, of course, it is always in the interest of the child, and I think the decision made is in the best interest of the child,” Anderson said.