LAUGHTER erupted in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court last week after a burglar, who ran off leaving his hat behind, told the court that he went inside the house because the door was open.
Tevin Larmond, a 20-year-old waiter of Aniels Crescent in Kingston, faced the court on Friday on a charge of larceny from the dwelling, to which he pleaded guilty.
The court heard that on May 20, around 3:45 am, Larmond gained entrance to the complainants’ house on East King’s Road, in Kingston and stole, $2,000, a Samsung cellular phone and a bicycle.
However, he was spotted by one of the complainants who was on the veranda studying and ran off leaving his camouflage hat behind, which was used to positively identify him.
On Friday when he appeared in court, Senior Resident Magistrate (RM) Judith Pusey asked him why he went into the house and he replied: “Cause de door did open.”
“The door jus invite you in,” RM Pusey asked, amid more laughter from the court.
The magistrate then told the prosecution that Larmond should have been charged with housebreaking. However, the prosecutor contended that he was correctly charged.
Pusey then asked Larmond: “Why you shouldn’t go to prison for making the door attract you?”
“I was stabbed by a policeman in New Kingston,” Larmond quickly answered.
“So what that have to do with this?” Pusey asked him.
Larmond then told her that he was stabbed by a police officer in his back on the same night of the robbery, but that he did not know the name of the officer whom he said injured him.
The magistrate then asked him about the whereabouts of the goods that he had stolen and he said: “They’re in police protective care,” while stating that he had someone watching the goods.
He was then remanded for sentencing on June 4 and instructed to tell the police where the stolen items were being kept.
Man stabs man for touching his woman
A man who stabbed a man three times for touching his female friend was told to fork out $30,000 or spend a month in jail.
The man, Lij Sinclair, of a Kingston address was fined by Magistrate Opal Smith after he pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding.
The court heard that the complainant was in a wholesale in downtown Kingston when he was attacked and stabbed by Sinclair.
The complainant said that he was stabbed in his head, neck and back.
However, Sinclair in his defence said that he wounded the complainant to protect his female friend who was being harassed by the complainant.
“I went to look for this lady and this gentleman come and a touch har all over her body,” he said. “We went into a wholesale and he did it again.”
“I don’t know him from nowhere and she don’t know him from nowhere and she was scared,” Sinclair added.
Sinclair was however scolded by the magistrate who told him to find another way to defend his companion without using a knife.
“What if the man had died?” she asked.
“Don’t use your knife on the next occasion, you have to find other ways to assert your maleness and your power,” RM Smith added before Sinclair was sentenced.
Pregnant woman wounds neighbour over dead cat
A pregnant woman, who faced the court for wounding another woman in a dispute over a dead cat, escaped an immediate prison sentence because of her pregnancy.
“The only reason why you’re not going to jail is because you are pregnant and for that you should say thanks,” Smith told 19-year-old Sarah-Ann Cunningham of Tivoli Gardens in West Kingston after she pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding.
Cunningham was arrested after she bit the complainant in her forehead causing her to seek medical attention.
However, on Monday when she appeared in court, Cunningham said that it was the complainant who first attacked her because she told her that she should not have killed her pet cat.
The cat was found dead after the complainant flung the animal from her house.
The teenager said that the complainant came to her and asked her what she would have done if the cat went into her house and she told her that she should not have killed it.
But Cunningham said that the complainant was not pleased with her response and started to curse her and an argument developed which escalated into a fight.
“We were up in each other face and she grab a piece of stick from out a fire and me grab a broomstick and lick har and then we start fight and me bite har,” Cunningham said.
The complainant, who had a bandage over her eye, told the court that she had apologised to the owner of the cat and that she was not aware that it had died after she threw from her house.
“Your honour the cat always come in mi house and the cat craab up me daughter and me threw it away, me neva know de cat died,” she said.
The complainant then told the court that Cunningham and her sister both attacked her and that Cunningham’s sister held her so that Cunningham could bite her.
“Your Honour, she a boast about it everynight since,” the complainant added.
Following that, the magistrate told Cunningham that she would have sent her off to prison if she was not pregnant and told her to return to court for sentencing on July 7.
Wifey wars with matie
A disgruntled wife, her estranged husband and his new love were all hauled before the court on Thursday after they reportedly engaged in fight when the wife allegedly attacked him and his sweetheart.
The couple, Kenisha and Odane Dixon, was charged along with Camile Anderson on charges of assault occasioning bodily harm.
Odane told the court that he went to St Thomas where his wife resides, to pick up his son from his grandmother, when his wife and her family attacked him and Anderson who had accompanied in a car.
“Why you carry Ms Anderson down there?” Pusey asked.
“We are not together anymore,” he answered while adding that the car belonged to Anderson.
“You knew it would cause a problem,” the magistrate said.
Kenisha, who was obviously upset and hurt, then intervened by saying: “Because I am stuffed animal and I don’t have any emotions.”
The magistrate then asked her if she had a problem and she told the court that Anderson was her problem.
Kenisha told the court that she and her husband had relocated to St Thomas to live in the house of a relative, so that she could save towards a house of their own but that her husband started and affair with Anderson which caused them to separate. She said that they have not been together for the past five months.
“You mustn’t tek you teeth and tie knot whey you tongue can’t pull, and that is marriage,” Pusey told Odane.
But he told her that he has been treated badly by his wife whom he claimed had stopped washing his clothes.
“She don’t do anything for me,” he said.
Pusey then asked him if she had never done anything for him during their five years of marriage and he said yes.
The magistrate then turned to Anderson and asked: “So you are satisfied to help break up this marriage.”
“I didn’t know that he was married,” she said in her defence.
“You know now and you are smart and beautiful, so you have to decide,” the RM told her.
The couple was then ordered to undergo counselling. However, RM Pusey told them that she was not sending them for counselling to work on their marriage, as they will have to decide whether or not they want to rekindle their relationship.
She told them that she wanted them to accept their responsibilities where their children are concerned.
Their bails were then extended for them to return to court on June 30.
