WESTERN BUREAU — A 30 year-old homeless man will appear in the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate’s Court this week to answer assault charges in connection with the March 16 fiery attack on another street person.

Athol Edwards has been slapped with charges of assault occasioning grievous bodily harm and has been accused of setting 37 year-old Anthony Brown on fire.

The attack took place at the City Spirit Foundation, a state-run day care facility established to provide for the tourist resort city’s mentally ill and homeless. Brown received burns to the chest and abdomen and is now a patient at the Cornwall Regional Hospital.

Over the last six weeks, at least four homeless persons have been set ablaze in Montego Bay. In February, Donovan Mitchell, Michael Morales and Elvin Irving received burns to their bodies after they were attacked and set ablaze in the city’s busy commercial centre, Sam Sharpe Square. The police are yet to locate a man known only as “Ragga” who they say they want to question about that incident.

On Friday, psychiatrist Dr Wendel Abel, the former chairman of the Board of Supervision, which has responsibility for overseeing the lot of the nation’s homeless, said that the recent spate of attacks reflects the attitude of the wider society towards the mentally ill.

“It is also reflective of people’s frustration and is indicative of the extent to which we violate each other’s human rights and basically how we treat each other,” Dr Able said.

Chairman of the St James Parish Council and mayor of Montego Bay, Hugh Solomon, also condemned the recent attacks on the homeless and has called on persons to desist from carrying out these acts.

“I really can’t see why people would want to do these things; they should stop it,” Solomon said.

He said, however, that ways will have to be found to put the homeless in shelters but warned that the state alone would not be able to do it.

The mayor urged the relatives of the homeless to play a greater supporting role in getting them off the streets.

But Dr Able argued that more must be done to tackle the problem of the homeless and the mentally ill in the society. He said there must be an ongoing education programme to make people recognise that street persons and the mentally ill in the society have rights.

“We also need to strengthen and support our community mental health services,” Able added.