THE Chinese couple at the centre of child beating incident at a store in Stabroek, Georgetown, appeared in court yesterday on a joint assault charge. Jiang Ping Ren and Jun Zhang pleaded not guilty to the offence when they made their appearance before Magistrate Judy Latchman.
Particulars of the offence said, on January 4, they unlawfully and maliciously beat 11-year-old schoolgirl Elizabeth Caesar to cause her actual bodily harm.
Attorney-at-law Mr. Satyesh Kissoon, for the Defence, requested reasonable bail, stating that the defendants never had any trouble with the law before.
The lawyer added that the virtual complainant has no marks of violence on her.
Police Sergeant Vishnu Hunt, prosecuting, had no objection to the grant of pre-trial freedom but asked that the defendants report to Brickdam Police Station regularly, until the case is concluded.
The prosecutor said the girl was in the defendants’ store looking at a bathing suit when Ren accused her of stealing and the woman defendant gave the child a sound thrashing in which her husband joined.
When calls were made for relatives of the virtual complainant, none was present.

Mark Benschop
However, the magistrate observed that social and political activist Mark Benschop kept raising his hands and, when she enquired if he wanted to speak, he responded in the affirmative.
Benschop told the court he was following the incident from the inception and the police failed to properly inform the child’s relatives.
He said it was unfortunate that the police did not alert the family to attend the court hearing for such an important matter.
However, the prosecutor told the court the family was indeed advised that the case was to be heard but he has no idea why they were not present.
The defendants were placed on $80,000 bail each and ordered to report to Brickdam Police Station every Friday pending the conclusion of the case, which will be called, again, on January 28.
After the proceedings were ended, a relative of the child turned up in court.