‘I panicked’

A young father who “panicked” after dropping his three-month-old daughter eight years ago and withheld information about the fall has pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Akida Javonne Bradshaw of Sturges, St Thomas on Monday admitted to the offence in connection with the May 2, 2015 death of Akela Bradshaw.

The plea was accepted by Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Alliston Seale who said Bradshaw’s actions were “gross negligence”.

“Although dropping a baby in an accident is not really an offence, it is the action surrounding the whole scenario – the withholding of pertinent information – that amounted to manslaughter by gross negligence, in that he contributed in some way to his daughter’s demise by not telling persons involved that his child had fallen,” the prosecutor said after outlining the facts of the case before Madam Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bovell.

Seale told the court that the toddler’s mother left her in the care of Bradshaw, who was 23 years old at the time, at his residence that Saturday morning and went to work. She received a call later that day asking her to go to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and when she got there she was informed that her baby had died.

In his initial interview with police two days later, Bradshaw told them the child had been crying incessantly and at one point, was not breathing properly.

His friend called for an ambulance but none was available and the dispatcher on the phone gave instructions on how to perform CPR on the child.

Police responding to the report transported Bradshaw and the child to the hospital where he told doctors that his daughter was not breathing properly.

However, a postmortem conducted on May 12 found that the baby had a skull fracture and was bleeding in the skull and brain. Death was attributed to blunt head trauma.

Everyone who came into contact with the baby on May 2 was interviewed but they could not say how she had sustained the injury.

On May 19, Bradshaw was released from the Psychiatric Hospital, where he was being observed, into the custody of police and he was arrested on suspicion of causing the baby’s death.

He was taken to the Holetown Police Station and told of his rights to an attorney, to which he replied, “I don’t want none, proceed.”

Police told Bradshaw of the new information.

“Well, Sir, on that day I was taking care of her. She was crying and she slip out of my hand,” he said.

Bradshaw then agreed to give a statement. In it, he said that he was outside with a friend but then went inside his bedroom to check on the baby.

“She was sleeping but I pull the blanket over her and didn’t get a response,” he said, noting that the baby would usually react to the slightest touch. “I took her up, she started crying and like jumping up in my hand and she drop full on the ground . . . . I rest her on the bed to see if she was hurt and she was not responding like normal. I got scared and shouted for my gran and Jabari . . . . I told Jabari call 911. I didn’t explain to no one what had happened and it was wrong of me but I was so scared and traumatised.”

Asked to explain how the baby dropped, Bradshaw replied: “She spring out of my hand and drop on her face and I pick her up quickly. I was rubbing her head all the time and I started to panic but she was crying . . . and I was panicking at that point in time.

“I holler for my gran and Jabari and them came. Them was looking at her and asking what happen and I tell them something wrong with she and stuff like that but I didn’t let them know she drop.”

“I know I wrong but I just panicked,” he added when police questioned why he did not tell his grandmother and friend about the fall.

The deputy DPP explained to the No. 4 Supreme Court that the manslaughter charge was based on gross negligence because Bradshaw did not let anyone, including the doctors, know what had really occurred.

“I am sure that is not the only child who ever dropped from a parent or dropped off a bed; these things happen. It is not that the State believes that a child cannot drop or that a parent cannot find themselves in a precarious position or that a parent wouldn’t even get frightened, but it is not providing the information to the caregivers and the health authorities and those persons who could have helped . . . . So it is this part that we say is negligent,” the prosecutor said.

“Notwithstanding that he has suffered himself, he as a parent had a duty imposed upon him . . . .”

Following a request by Bradshaw’s attorney Kendrid Sergeant for his client to remain on bail pending sentence, the prosecutor said the State usually asked for bail to be revoked on manslaughter pleas but would not in this instance.

“It is a most unique matter. A matter very, very strange and I guess we, as parents, understand the uniqueness of it.  Regardless of his reasoning . . . it was manslaughter by gross negligence and it was not ordinary manslaughter,” Seale said.

The matter continues on June 19. A pre-sentencing report and a psychological report have been ordered in the meantime.