By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – A 49-year-old Alabaster man is facing up to a decade in prison after he was arrested and charged with a felony child abuse case in mid-October.

The Alabaster Police Department arrested Christopher Somers Gaskill, who lists an address on Kentwood Drive, on Oct. 17 and charged him with one felony count of willful abuse of a child younger than 18.

According to his arrest warrant, the charge came after Gaskill allegedly “struck (the victim) in the abdomen and buttocks with his hand several times on Sept. 23.

Alabama law defines willful child abuse as any case when a suspect does “torture, willfully abuse, cruelly beat or otherwise willfully maltreat any child under the age of 18.”

Gaskill was released from the Shelby County Jail after posting a $5,000 bond the same day he was arrested. He is set to appear in Shelby County District Court for a preliminary hearing in front of Judge Daniel Crowson on Nov. 14 at 8:30 a.m.