Senior Magistrate Rickie Burnett last Wednesday, opted to reprimand and discharge a female defendant in the damage to property case involving here former male lover.
The defendant, 24, had pleaded guilty to damaging the trunk of her 25-year-old former boyfriend’s vehicle, P8126.
However, after hearing the facts, and explanations from the defendant and the complainant, the Senior Magistrate declared, “Given the facts and circumstance of this case, I am not ordering compensation for the complainant, I am going to reprimand and discharge the defendant.”
In presenting the facts earlier, Prosecutor Curlene Samuel told the Court that the defendant and the complainant were in a two-year intimate relationship which ended about three months ago.
On February 25, the complainant was at a parking lot in Arnos Vale when the defendant approached the vehicle and proceeded to question and accuse him of posting her private pictures on social media. The complainant denied the allegations, and the defendant proceeded to hit and kick the vehicle. When the complainant attempted to drive off, the defendant ran in front of the vehicle and continued to beat and kick it. He drove off eventually and as he exited the parking lot, the defendant hurled an unknown object, striking the trunk of the vehicle, causing damage. The complainant reported the matter to the police, and the young lady was subsequently arrested and charged.
But the girl told the Court on Monday, that the complainant bounced her with the vehicle as he was moving off, and she responded by hurling a stone and striking the back of his vehicle.
“I have witnesses to show that he hit me with the vehicle before he moved off,” the defendant said. But the Magistrate told her that she went wrong in the first place by not reporting that to the police, if it happened.
“What do you want the Court to do in relation to this matter?” Burnett asked the complainant, who replied, “I want her (defendant) to leave me alone,” as the two young ex-lovers stared each other from opposite sides of the court room.
“You are still young. As you get older you will see life, and things differently,” the Magistrate told both parties.
“If the parties were together for two years, and the relationship came to an end three months ago, my opinion is that the relationship is coming to an end, but has not yet ended,” Burnett added, but he made it clear, “that is only my opinion.”
He went on to express the view that all the love and affection that the defendant and the complainant had for each other, during that relationship, had not ended just like that.
When he asked the parties whether they agreed with him, they both replied in the affirmative.
“My honour, I did not post no pictures with her,” the complainant insisted.
But the defendant told the Court, “They were on his phone. Those pictures are all over the media. My mother knows about them, and I am supposed to leave St. Vincent. My mother is not going to accept that.”
Burnett then suggested that the complaint may not have posted the pictures personally, but it could be that he was reckless with his phone.
“You have a duty to protect the privacy of the woman you were with,” Burnett told him.
After reprimanding and discharging the young lady, the Magistrate told her former lover that he could have taken civil action if he so desired.
Source :The Vincentian
Advertisements
Advertisements
