The St Michael mother accused of harbouring two daughters who were wanted by police, was released today on $10,000 bail when she reappeared in court after spending the past two nights on remand.

When Barbara Rosita Bailey, 49, of #8 Grazettes Court, Grazettes first appeared before acting Magistrate Ellwood Watts on Monday, she was not required to plead to the indictable offence.

She is accused of concealing daughters Shakira and Tiffany Bailey in a wardrobe in order to impede their apprehension or prosecution, while knowing or believing that they had committed an arrestable offence of aggravated burglary or some other offence.

After hearing objections from police prosecutor Sergeant Theodore McClean and Bailey’s attorney Oliver Thomas, Watts remanded the accused to give police the opportunity to continue their investigations in light of
the fact that the daughters were being
questioned.

Today, while their mother was in the dock, Tiffany and Shakira were on a bench awaiting their turn. After she was granted bail, Bailey joined her daughters on the same bench where they chatted quietly with their attorney and each other, before the mother exited the courtroom.

Bailey returns to court on September 3.

If a Civilian Road, Bush Hall, St Michael man does not come up with $5, 000 in three months’ time, he will have to spend one year behind bars.

Gregston Ricardo Orlando Sealy, 28, was fined after he pleaded guilty to three drugs matters before acting Magistrate Elwood Watts yesterday in the District ‘A’ Traffic Court.

He admitted to being in possession of, intending to sell and having a trafficable quantity [24. 8 grammes] of marijuana on Tuesday.

The court heard from Sergeant Theodore McClean that police saw Sealy at Pioneer Road, Bush Hall, St Michael sitting among a group of men.

When police stopped their vehicle in front of Sealy, he was holding a black plastic bag. As they got out of the vehicle, he ran off still clutching the bag.

He was pursued and fell as he ran. After police held him, a search revealed 77 greaseproof wrappings of marijuana inside the plastic bag. He later told police he found the drugs.

He told acting Magistrate Watts that he found the marijuana on Sunday. “I did brek [and] things did hard for me”, he said.

“It is not for you to sell weed, especially when you have convictions for doing so already. This is the third time you are back here for weed, so you don’t plan to stop,” Watts told Sealy.

“I don’t accept that you found the cannabis and even if you found it, you were not obliged to sell it.”

Sealy was fined for intent to supply and was convicted, reprimanded and discharged on the other two.

The Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Barbados’ highest appellate court, is to rule on how far police witnesses can go in giving evidence before the local law courts and the directions they should receive from presiding judges.

The need to bring clarity on these issues emerged Tuesday during a case management hearing for an appeal to the CCJ in which Clarence Sealy, an elderly man who was sentenced on September 11, 2012 for raping a six-year-old girl, is seeking leave from the regional court to appeal the local Court of Appeal’s split judgement in his case.

In the hearing, which was done via videoconference in a room at the Barbados Supreme Court, the CCJ was asked to pay special attention to the opinions of Justices of Appeal Sherman Moore and Sandra Mason who, with Chief Justice Sir Marston Gibson, made up the Appeal Court in that case.

Chief Justice Sir Marston Gibson

Moore and Mason had determined that the trial judge in the Sealy case had properly exercised her discretion by permitting 2 police officers to read aloud from their notebooks, unauthenticated oral statements attributed to Sealy.

However, Sir Marston made a different determination and agreed with the convicted man’s position. He wrote: “I find that there is, however, some merit in the appellant’s contentions regarding the reading aloud from the officers’ notebooks.”

He went on: “As will soon appear, the judge’s error was to treat the grant of leave to refresh memory and the grant of leave to read aloud as coterminous. They are not.”

The Crown initially objected to this application at the hearing. But, after the CCJ repeatedly requested to know if the law was in serious need of clarification in Barbados because there was the dissenting judgment of the Chief Justice on the point of whether police officers should be allowed to read aloud from their notes, Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Charles Leacock agreed with the suggestion for urgent clarity.

Leacock conceded that once the CCJ could provide such clarity, it would give guidance to local judges and the administration of criminal justice in Barbados.

Accordingly, special leave to appeal to the CCJ was granted.

A wounding matter against a route taxi conductor was dismissed yesterday after the accused made a submission before Magistrate Douglas Frederick.

Jerry Brian Taylor of Keiser Hill, Christ Church was accused of unlawfully and maliciously wounding Junior Ward on April 19, 2013.

A summons had been issued in May for the complainant to attend court on Wednesday but he did not show up. The summons indicated that Ward had not been found at his given address.

On hearing that, Taylor informed that court that, “I have been coming here all the time. I get here before the doors open. I have to miss work to come here and I have three daughters to support.

“The complainant still lives at the same house at the corner of Water Street,  “so how come nobody can’t find he?” asked Taylor who attended court on every occasion.

Roderick Orlando Griffith got bail yesterday but today he was not so fortunate.

The security guard of Ashbury, St George reappeared in the District ‘A’ Traffic Court today before acting Magistrate Elwood Watts.

When he first went to that court on Thursday, he was not required to plead to causing serious bodily harm to Anderson Roach. He was released on bail overnight to return with a surety today.

An additional charge of stealing a wallet and $1,700 from Roach was read to Griffith today, to which he pleaded not guilty.

His surety was present and Griffith very likely would have been given further bail were it not discovered that he had five outstanding warrants against his name totalling $2,450.

When a court marshal made that known to the court, Griffith’s attorney Oliver Thomas urged the court to “exercise some degree of benevolence” since his client had only recently resumed working.

The lawyer added that Griffith had two children to support, one of whom had Down’s syndrome and the mother was unemployed.

“A great responsibility falls on Mr Griffith,” Thomas said. He therefore asked the court to consider allowing him to pay in increments “now that he is gainfully employed.”

In response, Watts commented: “You have done nothing about one warrant, you have done nothing about two, you have done nothing about three, you have done nothing about four, you have done nothing about five. . .and all of a sudden you expect that a magistrate must pay attention to your plea when you had five opportunities to pay?”

Watts then told Griffith that when he started to work he should have gone to the court and asked for other arrangements to be made, and should not have let the warrants amount to five.

“Don’t wait until you go to court on a completely different matter and then say you have a child with Down’s syndrome and you just got work. That is how you live?”

Griffith was remanded until August 28. “You are not leaving here on five warrants. That is ridiculous,” Watts stressed.

After a 16-year-old lad pleaded not guilty to a charge of unlawfully and maliciously wounding another youngster on August 27, Sergeant Theodore McClean requested that the accused be placed on curfew.

The reason given by the police prosecutor was that the incident had allegedly occurred at 3 a.m.

Responding, the teen’s attorney explained that the youngster played football some evenings and even though he was not advocating 3 a.m., the curfew ought not to be “too draconian at this stage.”

The attorney explained that the accused usually reached home around 8 p.m. and asked the court to consider extending it until such time, as opposed to the proposed 7 p.m.

“But what is his claim to fame?” asked acting Magistrate Elwood Watts. “Is he employed by someone to play football? Anybody can be considered a footballer once he can stand behind a ball and kick it.”

At that point the accused’s mother, who had been crying, raised her hand to speak. When she addressed the court, she stated categorically: “I am his mother. He will be going nowhere, Sir. No football, no nothing . . . except it is with me or to church.”

“That is the voice of his mother and his surety and that is what the court will yield to,” Watts responded.

The teen was ordered to report to a police station every Friday by 9 a.m. and to be “off the streets of Barbados between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m.”

“Until this case is adjudicated, 7 o’clock at night you have to be home,” warned the acting Magistrate.

The case was adjourned until October 29.

Acting Magistrate Elwood Watts today complimented a St Andrew man on his wisdom.

This was after Trevor Skeete, who resides at Bawdens, explained that rather than finding himself continually before the court for driving a two-ton truck in restricted areas, he had given up the job.

When Skeete appeared in the District ‘A’ Traffic Court to answer a charge of driving along Martindale’s Road, St Michael last October 29, he pleaded guilty to failing to comply with a sign which indicated ‘NO 2-TON VEHICLES.’

By way of explanation, though, Skeete told the court that his former employer had assured him that the truck was a service vehicle and that he had the authority to drive in those areas. However, every time he asked for the authorization letter to take to court, it was never handed over.

“It is too much responsibility on me and I had to leave the job because of these charges. I cannot afford to reappear in court on similar charges time and time again and nothing to back it up,” Skeete continued.

“You are a wise man and I agree with you,” Watts remarked.

However, in relation to another matter, Skeete was chided for not showing up at court on May 7 after being told to do so three days earlier. Skeete said he did not recall being told.

For his non-appearance he was ordered to pay $100 court costs in seven days or face a similar time in prison. He was convicted, reprimanded and discharged on the traffic violation.   

A man and a woman were each granted bail in the sum of $25,000 with two sureties, after appearing in court on a charge of stealing windows and doors.

Shane Omar Callender, 30, of Glebe Land, St George and Xandrea Aquina Hutson, 25, of 1st Avenue Deighton Road, St Michael, both denied stealing 54 windows and eight doors sometime between December 15 last year and February 20 this year from Oran Limited. The items’ total value was $25,610. 12.

Callender is a rental agent while Hutson is an administrative assistant.

Neither was required to plead to the indictable charge which acting Magistrate Elwood Watts read to them in the District ‘A’ Traffic Court today. The two return to court on October 29. Meanwhile, they have to report to a police station once a week.

Callender was represented by attorney-at-law Dr Waldo Walrond-Ramsay, Q.C., while Oliver Thomas appeared on behalf of Hutson.

A man who was found with a flick knife in his possession earlier this week was reprimanded and discharged when he reappeared for sentencing in a Bridgetown court today.

Akil Jabari Mason of Lightfoot Lane, the City had pleaded guilty before acting Magistrate Elwood Watts in the District ‘A’ Traffic Court on Wednesday to having the offensive weapon in a public place.

It was found by police who searched Mason on Suttle Street, City on July 27.   

The 26-year-old explained to the court that the knife was one of the tools of his trade since he works as a linesman. “I can’t work without it,” he said. “I was on my way to the landlord.”

Sentencing was postponed until today so that acting Magistrate Watts could view the knife. After doing so, Watts determined that “the knife looks like what he says it is.”

It was returned to Mason and he was told he was free to go.   

A 24-year-old water sports operator was not required to plead to causing Adrianna Sobers’ death by driving a motorcycle along Black Rock Main Road on April 3 this year, in a manner that was dangerous to the public.

Kemar Rico

Kemar Rico Jordan, of Chapel Gap, Paynes Bay, St James went before acting Magistrate Elwood Watts in the District ‘A’ Traffic Court today.

Sobers, 17, of Nelson Street, The City, was the pillion rider on the motorcycle which was involved in a Good Friday accident with two Transport Board buses.

There was no objection to bail from police prosecutor, Sergeant Theodore McClean, who asked the court to place certain conditions on the accused.

Jordan was granted $10,000 bail and will reappear in the same court on October 13. In the meantime, he must report to the Holetown Police station once a week, with identification.

Jordan was represented by attorney-at-law Arthur Holder.

A young man with a bright future ahead was told today he deserved some good licks for almost blowing the opportunity his parents were providing for him by taking up smoking marijuana and finding himself before the law courts.

Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant had these stern words for the 23-year-old St James resident who appeared before her in the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court today after police caught him on Saturday smoking a spliff at  Holborn Circle, St Michael.

Recognizing the scent of marijuana, the lawmen approached the young man who dropped the cigarette on the ground and destroyed it. The court heard he was subjected to a search which revealed he had a loose quantity of marijuana in his pocket as well.

Today, his attorney John Collymore informed the court that instead of being a first offender as was suggested, his client had actually been before the court five months ago on two similar charges, which had arisen out of the same circumstances. He was fined $1,000 and $2,000, respectively.

After Magistrate Cuffy-Sargeant thanked the lawyer for updating the court, Collymore went on to say that his client had benefited from a “sound secondary education” and should be given every opportunity to continue pursuing his education.

Collymore explained that while his client was “doing nonsense on Spring Garden”, his parents were “trying to get him out of this rut” by finalizing plans to get him into a college in England. “His actions were silly and had nothing to do with neglect of good parenting,” Collymore emphasized.

At that stage the Magistrate turned to the accused and said to him: “You really want some good licks though.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

When the young man’s father, who returned here from England yesterday, was questioned, he told the court that he had successfully enrolled his son in a college and had also arranged a job and accommodation for him. He added that the young man was due to travel to England later this month.

“You understand the burden you have placed on your parents?” the Magistrate asked.

“I know that I messed up ma’am and I am really sorry,” he said.

“This could easily have blown your chances . . . If you come back before me, it is not going to be like this,” Cuffy-Sargeant sternly warned him.

“I am open to giving second chances,” she said.

However, when the young man thanked her, the Magistrate responded by saying: “Come back in the next couple of years and show me a degree. That’s the thanks I want.”

He was reprimanded and discharged.

“You can go,” Cuffy-Sargeant told the young man.

As he was rushing through the court door, she said to him: “But I didn’t hear you tell your father thanks.”

“Oh, thanks, Dad,” he replied, as he hugged his father before exiting.

By the time 17-year-old Imani Kumba Biko Young reached the District ‘A’ Traffic Court today, someone had already compensated minibus owner Mohamed Adams for damage which the teenager caused to a vehicle belonging to Adams just over a month ago.

The Belfield Land, Black Rock, St. Michael lad had already pleaded guilty to the offence before acting Magistrate Elwood Watts when the matter came up for hearing. However, Adams informed the court that he had received compensation in the sum of $2,100 for the damage to the vehicle and, as a result, he was no longer interested in pursuing the matter.

The case was dismissed. Young reportedly damaged the minibus with a rock on June 30. Magistrate Watts advised him to be grateful that the complainant had decided against pursuing the matter. He also urged the young man to behave himself.

A middle-aged man who broke into the headquarters of the Barbados Table Tennis Association, stole a bottle of disinfectant and dishwashing liquid, and also damaged a drink machine on the premises, was remanded to the Psychiatric Hospital today.

Michael Decoursey Trotman, 46, of the Corner of Club Morgan, Christ Church pleaded guilty to committing offences between May 18 and 19 this year. The vending machine was the property of Vending Plus Incorporated.

Presenting the facts, police prosecutor Sergeant Theodore McClean told the District ‘A’ Traffic Court that Trotman entered the building after removing a louvre from a window close to the front door.  He then went inside the kitchenette, took up a shovel and damaged the front of the drink machine.

Trotman was looking to find money but got none. He then took the disinfectant and dish washing liquid from a cupboard.

Giving his version of what transpired, Trotman, a gardener, told the court he damaged the machine because he heard a voice coming from it.

Today, he asked the court for help in getting his “head sort out”.

“I just trying to turn around, sir. I don’t like that kind of life, sir,” Trotman told acting Magistrate Elwood Watts.

“So what is going to happen to the people’s buildings when you get your head sorted out?” Watts asked.

“I will see them and leave them, sir.”

Trotman was remanded to the Psychiatric Hospital for the next two weeks for evaluation. He returns to court on August 19.

“Until I hear the people at the Psychiatric Hospital telling me that you are hearing voices, I don’t believe you beat up a machine just because you heard voices coming out of it,” Watts told the offender.

“If they tell me that you are not hearing voices, you will spend some time for the foolishness you’re doing.”

The repeat offender is expected to be sentenced when he returns to court.

After the court hears from the complainant in a robbery case on August 12, acting Magistrate Elwood Watts will determine the fate of Ryan St Abeean Jean-Marie.

Jean-Marie, a 26-year-old caretaker of 4th Avenue Pickwick Gap, St Michael pleaded guilty today in the District ‘A’ Traffic Court to robbery and assaulting the complainant.

The court heard from police prosecutor, Sergeant Theodore McClean, that Jean-Marie and the woman, Shakira Worrell, were involved previously.

On July 31, Jean-Marie was questioning Worrell about her whereabouts. He then grabbed her handbag and the two struggled for it. He got control of it and ran off. When he brought it back later, $100 was missing from inside.

When Worrell asked about the money, Jean-Marie allegedly pulled a gun from his waist and pointed it at her, causing her fear.

A report was made to the police and Jean-Marie was brought into custody.

When acting Magistrate Elwood Watts asked him today to say something for himself, Jean-Marie asked “if I could wait ‘til Friday ‘til I get pay, and pay she back the $100 she say I take from her . . . but I only take $20 from her, sir”.

“But suppose it was five cents, you still would have robbed her,” Watts explained.

“But she is a woman who does go in my pocket when I get pay and take out what she want,” Jean-Marie explained.

He also said “me and she did together up to last night” walking towards Kensington Oval. It was only after he returned from walking that he got arrested.

The two also have a ten-month old child together.

“Truth be told, robbery is a serious offence that can land you in prison . . . I am going to bring Shakira Worrell here to hear what she has to say . . . If you walking about Barbados with a gun, is jail you going,” Watts told Jean-Marie.

Jean-Marie was then granted bail and told to return to court next Wednesday.

It is the opinion of Barbados’ newest magistrate that some persons “pick Kadooment Day to target people”. If that is proved to be the case, the culprits will not be tolerated especially if the incident occurs on an occasion “when people come out to have fun”.

That was the essence of what acting Magistrate Elwood Watts told two neighbours who appeared before him today in the District ‘A’ Traffic Court.

After hearing from police prosecutor Station Sergeant Irvin Kellman and later from defence attorney Romain Marshall on the question of bail, Watts said that although he was not saying this was so in the instant case, there were those who used Kadooment Day “to carry out their hits and beat-ups”.

“Every Kadooment Day in this country, somebody either comes close to losing their life or lose their life,” he remarked.

José McDonald Belle, a 40-year-old general worker, and Ryan Andre Smith, of Storey Gap, Codrington Hill, St Michael are facing a charge of unlawfully wounding Arnold Atwell with intent to maim, disfigure or disable him, or to cause him some serious bodily harm.

Atwell received stab wounds to the body on Monday.

In his objection to bail, the prosecutor said that his overriding concern was that the complainant was still in hospital and, should he take a turn for the worse, persons could then be at large in what could become a capital matter.

Kellman added that even though the prosecution understood the seriousness of the charge and did not necessarily desire a 28-day remand for the accused, he “would be much more comfortable if the complainant were discharged before the accused were granted bail”.

Marshall, who represented both accused, pointed to the possibility that Atwell could be released from hospital today. Therefore, to remand two men who were gainfully employed and had fixed places of abode, he argued, would be to possibly deprive them of their livelihood.

Marshall said this was particularly so in the case of Belle, who was not appointed in his job and had missed work since Tuesday because of this matter. He went on to say that Belle had three children who resided with him and for whom he had sole responsibility.

Marshall added that as far as he was aware, the complainant was in stable condition and the accused could be asked to report to a police station daily if deemed necessary. The court ought not “to remand two persons out of fear,” Marshall argued.

Addressing the two accused after reaching his decision, Watts told them that “it is not the prosecutor nor anybody else that put you where you are”. He told Belle that he ought to have considered his three children and his job when he went to Kadooment.

The men were remanded to HMP Dodds and the case adjourned until August 13 for an update on the complainant.

On Wednesday, he refused to give his name and address to a constable who was reporting him.

However, even though Public Service Vehicle (PSV) driver James Anthony Andrews thought he was being reported wrongfully and wanted “to be heard”, he was not sure it was worth it.

The Apple Hall, St Philip resident told acting Magistrate Elwood Watts today that he neither enjoyed being at a police station for an entire day nor losing a day’s pay in the process.

The 32-year-old pleaded guilty to obstructing the passage of vehicles along Nursery Drive Road and to refusing to give the policeman the necessary information.

According to the facts which Sergeant Theodore McClean outlined, when police saw Andrews on Nursery Drive Road, other vehicles were behind him, unable to pass. No vehicles were ahead of his, the door to the minivan was open and the conductor outside.

The police then stopped Andrews and told him he had committed an offence but he failed to give his particulars, remarking that, “You would have to take me in because I want to be heard”. He was arrested.

Andrews explained to the District ‘A’ Traffic Court
that a van stopped in front of him to turn around and he therefore had to wait but the policeman did not appear to have seen it.

“I didn’t stop to pick up passengers . . . and I don’t feel he should have reported me for something I didn’t do.”

Andrews also said that the lawman said he was going to make an example of him.

“He should make an example of the ones who give the trouble, not me,” Andrews stressed.

He however said that all the other policemen with whom he came into contact told him he was wrong to have refused to give the information.

“I accept I was wrong, sir,” Andrews told Watts today.

“They right to bring you into custody . . . I don’t feel sorry for you but I think you lost enough yesterday already.”

The acting Magistrate allowed Andrews to maintain a clean record when he reprimanded and discharged him with a warning not to do it again.

The driver of the ZR van which overturned close to the River bus stand two months ago, remains on remand.

Matthew Ricardo Daniel, 40, of Licorish Village, My Lords Hill, St Michael reappeared in the District ‘A’ Traffic Court earlier today. He was remanded on charges of furious driving, dangerous driving, driving without due care and attention and driving without reasonable consideration for other road users.

This time, he went before acting Magistrate Elwood Watts before whom the prosecution renewed their objections to bail.

Previously those objections were that the allegations were serious, the fact that Daniel had antecedents and that if convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison and/or a fine on the driving furious offence.

Further, that one of the aggravating circumstances as it relates to these allegations is that school children were traveling in the vehicle and a number of these persons were seriously injured. One child lost her arm below the elbow after the incident.

The prosecutor also submitted that it was a matter of public interest, tensions were very high, parents were angry and investigations needed to be completed.

Today, Daniel’s attorney Angella Mitchell-Gittens contended that there was no reason to continue holding Daniel “who has been in custody almost two months”.

She said that many accused with more serious charges where there is a loss of life “are not in danger of incarceration” since the usual penalty for a conviction for death by dangerous driving was a suspended sentence and a fine.

Mitchell-Gittens questioned whether Daniels would be required to continue on remand until whenever the prosecution withdraws its objections to bail.

She added that the matter was not likely to get off the ground “in any hurry” and she therefore could not see the point of “this pre-trial remand”. She submitted that should the accused be convicted, only then would “incarceration become a live issue”.

Today’s denial of bail had to do with the fact that the sitting Traffic Court Magistrate, Graveney Bannister, had set down August 14 as the date on which pre-trial disclosure should be handed over to the defence attorney by the prosecution.

Watts therefore felt it best to see what would happen on that date as opposed to granting Daniel bail today. He reminded  the prosecutor that disclosure ought to be ready for that upcoming date, when Daniel returns
to court.

Antonio Alphonzo Matthews was today given six more weeks to pay his stepfather the remaining $1,400 of the $1,800 owed to him, after he damaged his stepfather’s vehicle a few weeks ago.

However, the additional time came with a stern warning from Magistrate Douglas Frederick to leave John Wilfred, the complainant, alone.

Matthews, a 34-year-old welder of Headley’s Land, Bank Hall, St Michael, had pleaded guilty previously to assaulting Wilfred and occasioning him actual bodily harm, as well as to damaging his truck on June 28.

The two had argued and fought on that date and the matter was reported to police. However, after they returned home, Matthews beat his stepfather while he was sitting under a shed. He also hit his stepfather’s truck.

The estimate for repairs was put at $1,800, which Matthews should have fully paid by the time he next returns to the District ‘A’ Magistrate Court.

Additionally, Magistrate Frederick today placed Matthews on a six-month bond and warned him to stay away from his stepfather and his property. A breach of that bond will mean three months in prison.

This development came after the stepfather told the court that Matthews shows one face in court but was “a different person” once outside.

“Let me explain to you what a bond is,” the Magistrate told Matthews.

“It is for you to keep and be on good behaviour. You heard what your stepfather was saying? And I believe him because he is the same person who came here last time and begged for you not to go to jail.

Frederick continued: “You have a bond over your head . . . and if you come back here and are found guilty, you will spend three months for the breach and then anything else.”

A senior criminal attorney today expressed strong views on behalf of a man whose daughter made a complaint to police that he had slapped her.

In Angella Mitchell-Gittens’ response to the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court, she expressed the view that something was wrong with the entire situation.

“I hope that parents never reach the stage in this jurisdiction where they feel restrained in disciplining their children . . .  Quite frankly, I don’t understand the type of precedent we would be setting,” the lawyer said.

Desmond Felicien was charged with assaulting his daughter on August 6 and occasioning her actual bodily harm. The self-employed vendor, of Ellis Village, Halls Road, St Michael pleaded guilty to the offence when he went before acting Magistrate Elwood Watts.

In the facts which Sergeant Theodore McClean presented, Felicien took his daughter to a Bridgetown mall on Thursday to come back for her at 5 p.m. When he got there, he did not see her initially and tried to contact her. When he saw her coming, he beckoned to her.

The girl sucked her teeth and walked away, after which her father spoke to her about her behaviour. Felicien slapped her twice across the face and pushed her up the stairs of the mall. The matter was reported to the police and Felicien later turned himself in.

Mitigating on his behalf, Mitchell-Gittens said she found it “a little shocking that Mr Felicien would have found himself charged”.

“He speaks to his 14-year-old daughter who is disrespectful and she gets two slaps, which is the expected reaction when children in the Caribbean suck their teeth . . . ,” the lawyer remarked.

“I don’t know why that would have gotten to the stage where that would result in criminal charge,” she contended.

“She should have been apologizing profusely instead of reporting the matter . . . If something is not wrong with that, I don’t know Sir.”

Adding that her client took full responsibility for his actions, Mitchell-Gittens asked the court to reprimand and discharge him.

Watts said he was not condoning the father’s actions, neither was he going to imprison him for slapping the girl. However, what the acting Magistrate took issue with was what he called Felicien’s trend toward violence.

Referring to his criminal record, Watts spoke of an assault matter coming before the court as recently as March, as well as others which occurred previously where Felicien would have had fines imposed on him.

“You are demonstrating a bad trend, and it goes all the way back to 2003. You must realize there is some behaviour you must stop,” Watts stressed.

When the daughter was summoned and asked about what harm resulted from the slap, she told the court that her face had turned red.

The complainant, who lives in the United States, admitted that her father called to her three times before she chupsed. It was then that he slapped her. She also admitted that he had spoken to her about sucking her teeth previously.

“So what prompted you to go to the police?” Watts questioned.

The girl said it was her 28-year-old sister who took her to the police.

Watts then spoke to her about honouring her parents and the promise that accompanies that, according to the Bible. He encouraged her not to follow anyone to be disrespectful to her father, no matter what type of father he is.

He also reminded Felicien that while he had slapped the girl because she was “hard ears”, he too would receive a slap but “from a court” if he does not get his act together.

Felicien was reprimanded and discharged.

Two brothers who both had matters before Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant, returned to HMP Dodds today.

While Jabarry Jaziel Grant was at the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court in relation to a charge of robbing Kerry Leffert of $4,370 in items on March 19 this year, his brother, Kemo Avery Grant, was there to be sentenced for robbing Carol-Anne Alleyne of a $1,500 bracelet on June 3, 2013.

The two live at Block 1H Silver Hill Drive, Christ Church.

In the case of Jabarry, his application for bail was denied by Cuffy-Sargeant. He submitted that his co-accused in the matter had been granted bail already, he has a three-year-old child and a diabetic mother.

He also said he is supposed to be on headache medication which he should be getting, along with the fact that he is already on bail on four other matters.

Just over an hour later, his brother – also on remand – entered the courtroom and sat beside him on the bench, where the two chatted quietly.

Kemo later entered the dock. He had changed his plea on a previous occasion and was expected to be sentenced today after the court heard from the complainant.

However, after efforts to reach the complainant proved unsuccessful, the matter was adjourned until August 21.