Police have arrested and charged an Evesham man in connection with last Boxing Day’s attack of a woman in Lower Questelles, which left her hospitalised for a week with chop wounds to her neck and hand.
The man, Michael Antoine, was taken before the Family Court in Kingstown, where he was arraigned on charges of rape and of grievous bodily harm.
He is to re-appear in court in September.
Antoine was taken into custody last Friday, the same day that iWitness News published in a story in which his alleged victim said he had approached her in Kingstown last Tuesday, asking if she knew who he was.
The virtual complainant in the case, a 29-year-old security guard who is a mother of two children, had expressed frustration with the pace of the police investigation.
iWitness News was made aware of her situation when someone in her social media network told us of a post she had made on Facebook.
During our investigation, we learnt that police had assigned an additional detective to the case and were close to making an arrest
We, therefore, agreed to hold the story for 24 hours so as to not impede the investigation.
The woman said a man attacked her in Lower Questelles and beat her about the body with a cutlass on Dec. 26, 2016 as she walked to work at Lowmans Bay sometime shortly after 5 a.m.
She received a chop wound to the hand, which took more than 50 stitches to close, and another to the neck that took over 20 stitches.