A 21-year-old Lowmans Leeward woman was on Tuesday reprimanded and discharged at the Serious Offences Court after pleading guilty to assaulting the manager of a “Chinese restaurant” in Kingstown.
Friekesha Douglas told Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne-Matthias that she became upset when Jifen Chen, manager of Phoenix Restaurant on Lower Bay Street, Kingstown refused to pay her immediately after firing her on Jan. 13.
She told the magistrate that she was sorry for her action, and promised not to engage in that type of behavior again.
The court heard that Chen, the cashier at the restaurant, was at the cash register after firing Douglas around 4:15 p.m.
Douglas asked Chen to pay her before leaving the restaurant.
Chen told her to leave and return three days later, on Saturday — pay day, to collect the monies due to her.
The prosecutor told the court that Douglas became angry, pulled the key from the cash register, took up a slipper and began beating Chen.
The court heard that Douglas pushed Chen’s head against a wooden partition, causing injury to Chen’s nose, hand, and face.
A coworker pushed Douglas out of the restaurant, the court heard.
The matter was reported to the police, who took Douglas into custody on March 24 and charged her with assault and bodily harm.
She pleaded guilty when she appeared in court.
In mitigation, Douglas said she was already frustrated because at the end of the month she had to pay her rent and utility bills. She said she was expecting to be paid after being fired and, therefore, took matters into her hands when Chen refused to pay her immediately when she was dismissed.
She gave the magistrate the assurance that she would never be in court again to answer a charge.
The magistrate noted that the injury report that the doctor issued Chen detailed more of the injuries that she did not suffer rather than her actual injuries, which the magistrate said were superficial, and “really nothing to write home about”.
She further said that Douglas had a rightful expectation to be paid immediately after she was dismissed.
Douglas said that a co-worker had told her that Chen had said that she would not pay Douglas because they are friends.
The magistrate, however, countered that while an expectation of payment was due to Douglas, she wished that the former restaurant worker had not taken matters into her own hands.
The magistrate further said that it was difficult to exercise good judgment in such a case, and decided to reprimand and discharge Douglas.
But what does the magistrate mean by the injuries being “nothing to write home about”? What sort of judicial ambiguity is this? Is she standing in judgment of the complainant as well as the accused? Or is she trying to “kill” 3 birds with one stone and rope in the medical practitioner too?
I think this is a disgraceful judgment.
I notice on previous reporting on this case other commentators attacked the Chinese and Syrians and referred to them as foreigners, they are not, they are Vincentians.
Some of the Chinese and Syrians have lived in the Caribbean since the 1920’s.
Perhaps if the restaurant owner was black the outcome may have been different.
If I tell you that what passes under the umvrella of justice in cases where the ordinary man must appear does not scare me out of my wits, I tell a lie. And then the Bar Association has nerve to rise up in righteous indignation about how they are perceived and styled by many Vincentians. I suggest to the BA that their troubles did not begin in the wake of the 2015 elections nor will they subside after the 2015 election woes are settled. They’ve got their hands full.
The countries lawyers have a history of thieving, some that are practicing now stole clients money and had to disappear to Guyana and other places. One now dead even stole millions from his foreign clients. Some have a history of being involved with dirty offshore bankers and are still practicing today. Lawyers who had their own registry stamp to fool the clients whilst he stuffed the registration fees in their own dirty little pockets. One lawyer even murdered a man in the street by shooting him to death. Telling lies in and out of court is fairly common place. Even our prime minister who is a lawyer has admitted that he sometimes tells lies.
Remember the whole Judiciary are lawyers, even judges and magistrates are lawyers.
My dear passed father told me never to leave property deeds with lawyers or bank managers, they will find away of making off with the family jewels.
So the Bar Association need to look a little closer to home
That recent rebuke to the public should have been an opportunity to beg the public’s pardon and promise never to stalk the nation’s nursing homes with property conveyance papers already drawn up fully knowing that there is a living relative who pays the keep of resident in the home and who might be the resident’s rightful heir. Little things like that I am talking about.