By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

COLUMBIANA – A Shelby County Circuit Court Judge has dismissed a child abuse charge against a 27-year-old Montevallo woman, according to court documents.

Judge William Bostick on July 30 dismissed a felony child abuse charge against Montevallo resident Mary Haley Bonner, who was arrested and charged with the crime in November 2015. In exchange for the charge dismissal, Bonner agreed to grant a full release to the state, county, the public defender’s office and “any complainants, witnesses, associations, corporations, groups, organizations or persons in any way related to this matter.”

Bonner was arrested after a Shelby County grand jury indicted her on the child abuse charge, claiming she did “willfully abuse, cruelly beat or otherwise willfully maltreat” a child by “hitting him about the face and body with fists and/or slapping him about his head and body and/or hitting him about his body with a belt, or did aid and abet in said act.”

About eight months after Bonner was arrested, the Columbiana Police Department arrested 60-year-old Percy Nelms and charged him with one count of felony child abuse tied to the same incident Bonner was charged with.

Nelms, who now lists an address in Alabaster, was released from the Shelby County Jail on a $20,000 bond shortly after he was arrested in July 2016, but was rearrested and placed back into the Shelby County Jail on Sept. 10 after his bond was revoked following a February drunken driving arrest.

Child abuse is a Class C felony, and Nelms could face up to 10 years in prison if he is convicted of the crime. His child abuse charge is currently awaiting trial in Shelby County Circuit Court.