A man who faced the court for using a piece of wood to hit a teenage in his head after he saw him at a dance with his 10-year-old son, whom he claimed snuck out of the house, was ordered to pay $10,000 or serve six months.
Jonathan Maver was fined by RM Pusey after he pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding, following the incident in which he hit the 15-year-old.
But Maver in his defence told the court that he had not deliberately hit the teen and that the teen had told him a string of expletives.
According to Maver, on the night in question he went home after work and retired to bed but woke up about midnight and realised that his son was not inside the house.
He said he went to look for his son and found him at a “Round Robin dance” in the community in the company of the 15-year-old.
“If I go to my bed and wake up and find my son gone I would take the board and swing it at myself. I would take a belt and beat myself,” the magistrate told Maver.
But Maver said: “I was reprimanding my son when the boy started to tell me bare bad words and me swing the board and it catch him.”
“You gone to bed and you don’t know where your son is?” RM Pusey then said.
Maver told the court that his son had been inside the house before he fell asleep.
The magistrate then turned to both parents and asked them what their children were doing on the road at that hour of the night.
The complainant’s mother told the court that the time was not that late. When asked what the time was, she claimed it was “minutes after 11”, sparking laughter in the courtroom.
“I wasn’t home at the time. A somebody send him to shop, but question him,” the mother told the court.
The 15-year-old when questioned by the magistrate then told the court that someone had asked him to go to the shop to buy cigarettes and while on his way he saw Maver holding onto his son in the chest and Maver’s son told him a “bad word” and ran off and when he the complainant was passing back, Maver hit him in his head.
The magistrate then asked Maver if had beaten his son and said: “No, me nuh beat him yet,” sparking more laughter from the court.
“You figure because him bigger than your son, him inveigle him and this time your wrong,” RM Pusey said.
The magistrate then told Maver that his son should not have been out on the road and that he had no right to hit the complainant, no matter what he did.
“I should charge both of you for your child being out on the road,” she said to the parents, before fining Maver $10,000.
“Children can’t grow like tree, they have to be under control,” RM Pusey commented.