Public Defender says her office has evidence backing claim that young Rastafarian's locks were cut off while in police custody

Public Defender Arlene Harrison Henry has declared that her office has credible evidence to support a 19-year-old Rastafarian woman’s claim that her locks were trimmed by a police woman while in custody.

It's alleged that the incident took place at the Four Paths police station in Clarendon, where the young woman, Nzinga King, was being detained, on July 22.

The Public Defender told Radio Jamaica News that investigators from her office will be collecting further evidence on Tuesday, having already received information "from very reliable sources, that the young lady's hair was indeed trimmed".

She said the investigators from her office would be going to the police station in a bid to get "further and better particulars; to examine station diaries... to have a fuller understanding of what really happened."

Police Commissioner Antony Anderson has also ordered a high-level probe of the reported incident, asserting that such behavior, if true, has no place in modern Jamaican policing.

In that regard, Mrs Harrison Henry observed that "the police know that this is wrong... They know that there are legal consequenes (for abuse of the rights of Rastafari) and yet they continue to do it."