Step-father of 11 month old baby charged with neglect

And in the Magistrates’ Court in Belize City today, twenty-nine year old Edward Sandoval, the stepfather of an eleven month old baby boy was charged with Child Neglect after the child suffered a fractured nose on October ninth. Sandoval, a construction worker of Barracat Street, pleaded not guilty to the charge and was offered bail of five hundred dollars. While the case was adjourned until November twenty-ninth, Magistrate Alberta Perez pointed out that Sandoval might not be the right person to be charged since he is not the biological father of the child and that the Department of Human Services needed to look into the case. Sandoval reported to police that the child was left in his care by the mother, twenty-three year old Barbara Fernandez. According to Sandoval, he was reading a book when he heard the baby crying and then found the baby on the floor. When the child was taken to the K.H.M.H., the doctor certified that his nose was swollen and fractured and that his forehead was also swollen.