Attorney calls for Hyde to be housed in mental facility on bail
Champagnie cites embarrassment as judge queries father’s absence at hearing
Published:Tuesday | March 28, 2023 | 1:26 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
Matthew Hyde, the 20-year-old student accused of torturing his ex-girlfriend in his dorm room at The University of the West Indies, Mona, will return to court on Friday to continue his bail application.
On Monday, Judge Lori-Anne Cole-Montaque ordered that Hyde be further remanded after listening to proposals by his attorney, Peter Champagnie, KC, to have the accused housed at a private institution called Ferdie’s House during his bail.
“Your Honour, I’m not unmindful of the reality of all the factors, so the application for bail is not that it’s really out of desperation because we want him to have bail. It’s really with a genuine effort to see for once in his life, what we think ought to be applied, can be applied, and see if it makes the difference,” Champagnie said during the hearing at the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court.
Champagnie said that as a father of four girls, with the eldest being 17 years old, he has a particular stance, personally, when it comes on to “young men laying hands on young women”.
“There can be no justification for it, period,” he said.
The attorney then presented a report from an assessment done of Hyde at the Half-Way Tree Police Station by psychiatrist Professor Wendel Abel.
He then asked for Abel to be present in court on Friday for the continuing of the bail application as he continued to justify why he was proposing that Hyde be housed at Ferdie’s House, an adult day-care centre for persons with mental-health issues.
“In short, Matthew Hyde has never been given an opportunity to either have sustained care of a particular nature or treatment and he has been, as it were, almost like someone from an early age in no man’s land. The report is very very telling, and in some instances, damning in relation to other persons,” he said.
Champagnie also noted that while Hyde is confined to the facility, where treatment is administered, officers could check in on him.
Another reason was that the “immediate caregivers” – Hyde’s parents – were not in a position to provide that kind of accommodation.
Given that only Hyde’s mother has been attending court during the bail applications, Judge Cole-Montaque enquired about the father of the accused.
In responding, Champagnie said: “Your Honour, I did indicate to the other primary caregiver that his presence would be of great utility. ... I believe, from his perspective, there is much embarrassment.”
Cole-Montaque said there would need to be proof of a six or seven months’ deposit for the payment of the period being proposed for him to be housed at Ferdie’s House.
Reports are that Hyde held his 19-year-old ex-girlfriend captive for three days in his room and repeatedly beat and burned her with a clothes iron all over her body after reportedly accusing her of infidelity,
Hyde is charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, malicious communication and false imprisonment.