THIS IS WHY WE HAVE TO TAKE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SERIOUSLY

Woman allegedly beaten by baby father for sex begs for his release

A woman who was hospitalised for three days after she was reportedly attacked and beaten by her child’s father when she refused him sex, left the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court last week in a huff after her pleas to drop the case were refused.

“I am asking if you could please drop the case or even give him bail, “ the complainant asked Parish Judge Maxine Ellis in court on Tuesday.

“He is a good father and he should be home,” she said in reference to her child’s father, or in local parlance, babyfather, Dave Williams, a 42-year-old plumber who had pleaded not guilty to punching her in her face repeatedly and using a piece of bamboo with a nail on it to hit her in the face.

The complainant — who appeared in court with her sister — another complainant in the case, told the judge that she had asked the court from the previous mention date to drop the case but she was told that her sister needed to be present as well.

But the judge told her: “ You didn’t charge him so you can’t drop it.

“Even while you are begging for him he has just said that he has not done anything wrong,” Judge Ellis continued. “So he is saying that the State has taken his liberty for nothing. So what it means is that the State runs the risk of locking him up for something that he did not do.”

The judge also told Williams’ babymother that she also runs the risk of being prosecuted for reporting to the police something that he did not do.

But the complainant would not relent and continued asking for Williams to be freed.

“Didn’t you go to the police and tell them that he came to the house and demanded sex, and when you refused he started punching you and you ran from the house and he chased you down and continued punching you in the face and used a piece of bamboo to hit you on the right side of your body? Didn’t you go to the police and tell them? So stop talking. The State has the matter,” Judge Ellis said.

But the complainant persisted.

“Is my son’s father. Mi nuh waa the State to lock him up,” she said.

“So you want me lock you up?” the judge asked.

The complainant then told the court that four days after the incident she went back to the police and asked them to discontinue the matter, but they told her to ask for it to be discontinued when she went to court.

“Yes, it is bad and all but I don’t want him to be locked up,” she insisted.

“It is just a small incident that escalated. We have been together for five years now and nothing like that has ever happened,” she said, trying to convince the judge.

“You were hospitalised for three days so when you come here and say it is a little incident and you want him back home, it does not work like that, “ the judge replied.

Besides that, Judge Ellis reminded her that Williams was denying assaulting her, but she told the court that he misunderstood what was said.

“He misunderstood? You know him more than anyone?” the judge questioned.

The sister, who had also told the court she had suffered a wound to her finger and appeared to be in support of her sister’s request, then told the court Williams was indeed mistaken.

But when the judge asked him if he wished to be asked again to be pleaded he said ‘no’.

The judge then told them that Williams will be remanded and a May 8 date was scheduled for him to return to court. The sister complained that she did not get a chance to speak but the magistrate indicated that she had heard enough.