Pastor whipped orphans during search for missing cell phone

Last Updated on Sunday, 24 January 2016, 22:18 by Denis Chabrol

A Pastor, who is responsible for an orphanage, at Port Mourant, Corentyne was Sunday questioned in connection with the whipping of two male orphans during a search for a missing cellular phone.

Police confirmed that Pastor Vernon D’Oliveira was questioned, gave a statement and released from custody on his own recognizance. He is expected to return to the station on Monday.

D’Oliveira denied that he beat the boys with a stick but admitted that he used a whip and lashed them-, one nine years old and the other 14 years- old- once with a whip in the hope that he would have provided information about the phone. “One of them was very suspicious,” he told Demerara Waves Online News.

He explained that a number of ladies had visited the Canaan Children’s Home at 11 Area ‘Q”, Port Mourant and one of them later claimed that her phone was missing.

The Pastor said during the search, a phone that was previously stolen from someone else was found.

President David Granger recently described corporal punishment as “backward.”  “There was a time when (corporal punishment) was typical. People thought, spare the rod and spoil the child, but I think that is ancient and backward,” he said.