Brutal beating of female priest leaves Baptist leader furious

Livern Barrett, Gleaner Writer

Enraged by the savage Christmas Eve beating of a female Anglican priest in Old Harbour, St Catherine, a leading clergyman has declared that the time has come for the nation's leaders to "cut the quibbling and point-scoring" and tackle the escalating problem of crime.

The sharp rebuke by the Reverend Karl Johnson, general secretary of the Jamaica Baptist Union, comes as the priest continues to make a slow recovery at an undisclosed hospital weeks after she was taken from her home and beaten into a coma and left for dead along a dirt track in the parish.

"There is a certain viciousness and callousness that is taking hold of our country. It not only besmirches our country, but it uglifies us," Johnson declared.

"We have to cut the quibbling and point-scoring and get around the table. We can do it," he insisted.

According to the police, the middle-age woman, whose name is being withheld, was at home with her daughter in the community of Nightingale Grove when a group of gunmen barged in and stole an undetermined amount of cash, a television set, and other items.

In making their escape, the men reportedly set the house on fire and took the priest with them.

"They took her to a nearby dirt track where they beat her in her head and left her to die," a police spokesman told The Gleaner.

Found by a passer-by

Her badly beaten body was found by a passer-by who alerted the police.

Up to late yesterday, police investigators had not identified any suspect in what they are treating as a case of robbery with aggravation, kidnapping, and arson.

However, the police say they are awaiting the results of a forensic examination of the crime scene.

A spokesman for the Anglican Diocese of Jamaica told The Gleaner yesterday that the beating left his colleague almost unrecognisable.

"She was badly beaten. Most of the blows, I am told, were to her face ... . You wouldn't recognise her," the spokesman said, noting that her condition has improved "slightly".

In condemning the attack, Johnson said the nation's leaders need to rally the country "around a point of impatience with how we treat each other".

"We have to get to the point where an attack on any citizen is equally repulsive," he underscored.

The clergyman conceded that policing small countries like Jamaica presented several challenges for law-enforcement personnel, but argued that there were also advantages.

"Everybody knows everybody. Some father or mother or girlfriend knows something," he said.

The spokesman for the Anglican Diocese, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was still concern for the priest's safety and added that the church "wants to know that whoever perpetrated this is caught".