WESTFIELD – A city man who pleaded guilty to assault charges including assault and battery on a child will be on probation for a year.
The charges were filed in January after a three-year-old boy was found to have bruises on his head and face which required medical attention.
Officer Juanita Mejias reports in a court document that the boy’s injuries were brought to police attention by the boy’s biological father who immediately noticed the bruising when he picked up his children for his scheduled visitation with them.
The man told police that the boy’s mother volunteered, before he said anything, that the boy’s injuries had been sustained when he fell out of bed and landed on his toy trains.
After the boy’s injuries had been treated, both he and his five-year-old sister were interviewed by a forensic interviewer using a well codified procedure to minimize the emotional trauma to the child while allowing investigators from all the interested agencies to be out-of-sight yet observe the child describe the event being investigated.
The girl told the interviewer that their stepfather had hit herself and her brother “because he was mad.”
When asked why her stepfather was mad, the girl said “he’s always mad, that’s ‘cause he keeps drinking beer.”
The girl said that “he really gets angry and he hits me in the face” as she demonstrated by slapping her own face.
“He drinks a beer forever and makes us very, very scared,” the girl said before saying that the man hits herself and her three-year-old brother but does not hit their baby brother (the man’s biological son) “’cause he likes (the baby).”
When the boy was interviewed he also said that his stepfather had hurt him.
“He hurt my lips, he hurt me like this, like that,” the boy said and slapped himself on the left side of his face repeatedly until the interviewer stopped him.
Both children told the interviewer that their mother had not hurt them and said they were only struck by their stepfather.
Paul Royland, 33, of 87 Meadow St., was taken into custody and arrested on two charges of assault and battery in a domestic relationship and a charge of assault and battery on a child with injury.
He appeared in Westfield District Court Wednesday before Judge Philip A. Contant and pleaded guilty to all three charges.
Royland was enjoined from abuse of the victims when he was placed on probation for one year. He was assessed $90 and will be obliged to pay a $65 probation supervision fee each month he is on probation.
