THE three women and four minors who have been charged with the beating of a 14-year-old Clarendon girl were banned from social media, including the messaging service WhatsApp, when they appeared in the Clarendon Parish Court on Thursday.

Senior parish judge Dahlia Findlay also placed a gag order on the accused, preventing them from discussing the matter in the public as she offered them bail.

In addition, they are to submit any travel documents and avoid any form of contact with the victim and the witnesses.

The adults, 52-year-old Pauline Hughes-Smith, 36-year-old Fayann Millwood, and 22-year-old Amanda Anderson were granted bail in the sum of $1.2 million each, while the minors, ages 15, 16, and 17, were offered bail in the sum of $600,000.

All the adults were instructed to report twice weekly to the nearest police between the hours of 7:00 am and 7:00 pm, while the minors are to report once weekly. The teenagers were also given a curfew, beginning 8:00 pm until 6:00 am daily.

They all are scheduled to return to court on March 26. They have all been charged with wounding with intent, assault occasioning bodily harm, and malicious destruction of property.

It was reported that, on December 20, 2023, the 14-year-old girl was beaten brutally along Holland Street in Denbigh, Clarendon, which led to her being unconscious. She was assisted to hospital, where she was admitted in serious condition.

Following an investigation, the six females were taken into custody on Tuesday, January 2, while the lone male accused was arrested a day later.

Outside the court on Thursday, the victim’s aunt, Kadian Simms, told the Jamaica Observer that it has been difficult for the family to cope since the incident.

“Those ladies are very wrong to what they have done. That child is so innocent. If you want to be in a friction with somebody, you could go and look for the mother. Why you beat the child like that?” said Simms.

“I want to see justice for my niece. My niece is in and out of the hospital and my sister is very traumatised about this. It’s four sisters and we have to try support her, encourage her, just to let her go on for her little daughter.

“Inna Jamaica we are all women and parents and it nuh look good for we as a mother stand up and see a war a go on and we come and join the war. Why those two ladies couldn’t come and quash the war? It don’t look good and I don’t support slackness in this country. That is total slackness,” added Simms, a mother of four boys.

She said her niece was treated like an animal and that is difficult for her to accept.

“The worst part of it was when mi watch the video and see them have mi niece down a ground and the little girl was like, ‘Help mi!’ Every day mi drive past where the incident happened and mi keep stopping and looking at my niece blood on the ground.

“I am so upset. It leave a pain inna mi heart to know say is woman doing all of this in the country,” said Simms.