By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

COLUMBIANA – A Shelby County Circuit Court judge has issued a warrant for a 60-year-old Alabaster man who is facing child abuse allegations after the man’s bond was revoked following a February drunken driving arrest.

Circuit Court Judge William Bostick ordered Percy Nelms, who lists an address on Mount Olive Road in Alabaster, be arrested and held without bond after revoking his bond in an Aug. 1 court order.

The Columbiana Police Department arrested Nelms on July 21, 2015, and charged him with one felony count of child abuse.

Nelms’ arrest came after he was indicted by a Shelby County grand jury in November 2015.

His indictment claimed he “did on or about July 16, 2015, torture, willfully abuse, cruelly beat or otherwise willfully maltreat” a male 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.”

Child abuse is a Class C felony, and is punishable by up to 10 years in prison upon conviction. Nelms was released from the Shelby County Jail the same day he was arrested after posting a $20,000 bond, according to jail records.

Nelms was the second suspect arrested in connection with allegedly abusing the child, as 25-year-old Montevallo resident Mary Haley Bonner was arrested in Nov. 18, 2015, and charged with child abuse as well. Her charge was dismissed on July 30.

While Nelms was out on bond for the child abuse charge, he was arrested by the Alabaster Police Department on a drunken driving charge on Feb. 1, prompting the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office to request Nelms’ bond be revoked because “one of the mandatory conditions of release on bond is that defendant refrain from committing any new criminal offenses.”