Even though the presiding magistrate counselled a mother and daughter at length today, the complainant insisted on pursuing a matter in which her mother was prosecuted for beating her yesterday.
However, after hearing from both parties, Magistrate Douglas Frederick took the view that justice would be better served if he sentences the perpetrator at a later date.
“I want some cooler heads to prevail before I make a decision,” he said, prior to adjourning the case until November 6.
The District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court heard that the complainant was walking up the stairs when her mother, Judith Othneil Lynette Rock, pulled her backward. The girl fell into a chair and the two fought.
The complainant, who is of slender build, ended up on the ground and that was when her mother put her knee in her daughter’s chest and began cuffing her in the face and neck.
The daughter reported the matter to the police and her mother was arrested and charged. Today the daughter appeared in court with a black eye and a slightly swollen face.
Rock, a 48-year-old baker, confessed to unlawfully and maliciously inflicting serious bodily harm on her daughter. The defendant lives at Block 22A Patience Drive, Eden Lodge, St Michael
When Magistrate Frederick asked the complainant to say what happened, she said it was not the first time that her mother had hit her. She said every time she gets a job, her mother tries to control her pay.
The last job she had, the woman said, she paid two bills in the home but her mother insisted that the mother of two help pay some of the rent as well.
The mother later told the court that it had nothing to do with her daughter’s pay cheque but whenever she has to chastise her, her daughter answers her disrespectfully and takes up a knife.
The daughter, however, said that she only takes up a knife because her mother goes for a cou stick and having the knife is the only way she can fend her off.
The girl ended by saying that she plans to move in at her grandmother today.
“The best thing for you to do is move out . . . Look, you are here saying your mother is abusing you,” Magistrate Frederick pointed out.
“When you reach 25 and so on, you really have to start looking for your own place . . . you are a woman and she is a woman. You are not going to want to listen to her and she is going to want to dictate to you because she is your mother,” the magistrate continued.
“You see the licks she put in you? She thinks she is entitled to beat you with a cou stick because you live at her.”
Magistrate Frederick also cautioned the daughter to “try and respect your mother”, adding that he has seen “many times before” when persons said they wanted nothing more to do with family but ended up at their mercy thereafter.
“I can guarantee you that the relationship is going to get better after you move out.”
“You see the birds? After a certain time, they push their young out of the nest. They either fly or fall to the ground. Cats do it too,” Frederick remarked.
He also cautioned the young woman not “to settle” but to try and get her own place as soon as possible.
The magistrate further warned her not “to take anything from that house that is not yours”, while warning the mother to “try not to get into any conflict with her when she is moving”. Rock was placed on $2 000 bail.