FITZGERALD "DONOVAN" Clarke, who bit and severely beat his 12-year-old daughter last month for failing to gain a GSAT place at a St. Andrew high school, is to face the Half-Way Tree Resident Magistrate's Court on Friday.
According to the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN), the decision was made last Friday, when Mr. Clarke appeared in court for the second time to answer to the charge of cruelty to a juvenile.
The 32-year-old father of Cockburn Avenue off Olympic Way, St. Andrew, and who works for a soft drinks company, turned himself in on July 2, a few days after he had fled and the police expressed an intention of appealing to his boss to help locate him.
Mr. Clarke, who was accompanied by his lawyer, pleaded guilty to the charge in court, the police said.
Police reports stated that he bit and severely beat his 12-year-old daughter because she failed to gain a place at a high school he liked following last month's release of the results of the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT).
The beating gained public attention and the condemnation of Education Minister, Senator Burchell Whiteman.
According to police reports, the student of Dupont Primary on Olympic Way, was reportedly grabbed by the blouse, chased and whipped with a garden hose around 6:00 a.m. on Friday, June 28, hours after her disappointed father had learnt that she would not be attending Queen's High School in St. Andrew next September.
Instead, the child had been granted a place at the Haile Selassie Comprehensive High School, a former secondary school on Payne Avenue off Spanish Town Road.
