“This man was big…He is bigger than anybody in this room. Please don’t think I’m rude but he is even bigger than you, Ma’am. How can I fight a man like that? I can’t fight a man like that… So the first thing that came to my mind was to go for a gun but I didn’t have a gun. So, I went for the Vincy favourite tool – which is the cutlass.”
That was how 27-year-old Ray Junior Morris described his state of mind and gave a condensed version of a criminal act that took place at his home on June 7, 2014.
Morris was charged with damaging his mother’s bedroom door and three sheets of galvanize. He pleaded guilty.
Police said Morris returned home from a party around 3.15 a.m. on June 7 and started banging on his mother’s bedroom door. After she refused to open it he took a cutlass and chopped it up then went and chopped up three sheets of galvanize.
Morris, however, told the court that he was not returning from a party and that it was much earlier. He said he went out with his wife and when they returned home their 4-year-old son was in his room crying. He went to his mother’s bedroom door and knocked, asking her if she did not hear her grandson crying. He said he opened the door and saw a man, his stepfather, in the room with her and he asked if she preferred to be with that piece of garbage instead of looking after her grandson.
Morris said the man approached him, held him by the throat and pushed him against a wall. He said he did not fight back because the man was big and strong.
Morris said he got hold of a cutlass because he had no gun and he chopped up the bedroom door because he was very angry. He then went on to the house roof and chopped up the galvanize sheet.
“You ever went to Glen to have an assessment done of you?” presiding magistrate Rechanne Browne-Matthias asked the defendant.
“No,” Morris replied.
“You will have to pay for all the damage you did,” the magistrate said.
The magistrate asked Morris if his son and wife witnessed his rage, but he said no. He told the court he had sent her to their room with his son.
Asked if they were still living the same place with his mother, he said his wife and son had left to return to Canada. He told the court his wife went to stay at a hotel for some time before leaving. He also said she was Italian and that it was her first visit to this country.
“What an experience!” the magistrate said, adding that even if she was in her bedroom she must have heard what was going on.
Magistrate Browne-Matthias asked Morris if he was sure that his wife didn’t flee with their son, calling it quits, after she had such an experience. But, he said no. He also told the court, when questioned, that it was not the first time she had seen his rage. He said there was one incident before when they were overseas and he had “run a red light.” He, however, did not go into details on that incident.
Morris has until June 30, 2014, to pay compensation of $455 to his mother for the damage to the galvanize sheets and bedroom door. In default, he faces three months in prison. He was also placed on a bond for six months. If he breaches the bond, he faces six months in prison if he is unable to pay the EC$1,500.
I don’t understand this Mr Morris, how you interrupting yo mother “business” just so? I can understand why the stepfather choke you off,…you outta place, barging in on the man like that…you know what Mr Morris, you deserve two slap and a swift kick in the nuts for your unruly intrusion.
Mr Morris, to avoid all such trouble in the future, get a baby-sitter next time… that way, you don’t have to interrupt your stepfather from laying pipe…and you pulling cutlass like some wannabe bad john… ok Mr Morris?….lol…By the way, Mr Morris, how come you nah gone back wid yo wife and child?…just wondering…
… but wait nah, a man thief two deodorant and get jail time…but this fool was brandishing a deadly weapon, causing mayhem and destruction to property and intent to do harm to another person…and he just have to pay for the damages…is our justice system corrupt or simply ‘backward?”…mm.
Okay first off maybey st vincent should have a better system.cuz clearly the 2 year old was left under supervision of the grandmother truley my mother and my childs grandmother would never leave my child locked in a room while being banged by her boyfriend. If her grandson was visiting from a foreign country shouldnt she want to spend it with the child and take an hour off giving head. And if she didnt answr the door when her son was banging on it. The doordeserved being chopped up. My problem isnt with the man it would be with that discrace of a woman he calls mom. Poor child had to go through all that for what. Where im from the child would be the victim after all that took place. And I could bet my last dollar he wasnt even looked at. I guess child abuse is all what st vincent and the grenadines is about
Yes! That’s justice Vincy style. The entire system is corrupt and needs a total recall.
@ Rechanne Browne-Matthias:
Existence is sanctuary: It is a good man’s purse, it is also a bad man’s keep. Clever performances come dear or cheap, goodness comes free; and how shall a man who acts better deny a man who acts worse this right to be.
Rather, when an emperor is crowned, let the ministers whom he appoints to receive for him fine horses and gifts of jewels receive for him also the motionless gift of integrity, the gift prized as highest by those ancients who said,’ only pursue an offender to show him the way’.
what men in all the world could have more wealth than they?
@noneurbusinezz, on principle, you have a point in regards to the welfare of the child but given the limited information in the article surrounding the child;i think you are being presumptuous to fault and putting the blame unfairly so on the grandmother. Who is to say that the child may have gotten up just about the time the parents came back…who is to say that the grandparent, may have just put the child down and went back to her room, when the parents walked in…I don’t know, just speculating…but I know this much, when man and woman dey lock up in a room…ah hurricane could be raging outside and they not budging…I am just saying.
I have no idea what was the arrangement between the respective party and the sort of relationship that exist between mother and son, clearly not a healthy one… but I totally disagree with the action taken by the son. If you feel so aggrieved, go and get a hotel room and leave your mother to deal with her conscience…but knocking down on your mother bedroom door in a state of anger, is the height of disrespect, regardless, how bad you think your mother is…then pulling cutlass and chopping down the door…wtf, really?
The welfare of a child is crucial, but two wrongs never make a right…I think this situation was blown way out of proportion…if you know that your mother has a man that you don’t approve of…why the f***k are you staying under the same roof?
What the international community call child abuse today, is what we call discipline back in the day…nowadays, you put a finger on a child and is murddah!!!!….the child was crying, ok, maybe the child is one of those miserable kids, who bawl for everything under the sun, like my daughter…idk…but its not the end of the world… thankfully, and apparently, the child was not physically harmed; now you know next time, not to leave your child with your mother….so get over it….if you want your child to be watched every minute and every second…then keep your arse home and take care of your child…at the end of the day, its your child, not your mother’s…she already did her job with raising your sorry disrespectful arse….I am just saying lol.