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Woman-beater Aaron John returns to prison on Wednesday to complete his three-year sentence for striking his ex-girlfriend in the head with a stone. (iWN photo)
Woman-beater Aaron John returns to prison on Wednesday to complete his three-year sentence for striking his ex-girlfriend in the head with a stone. (iWN photo)
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The Court of Appeal, on Wednesday, said there were too many cases of men beating women in St. Vincent and ruled that an Arnos Vale man must serve his full three-year sentence for hitting his ex-girlfriend and mother of his children in the head with a stone.

In rejecting the appeal by Aaron John, Justice of Appeal Louise Blenman said there were too many instances of men beating up women in St. Vincent.

“Too much of it is coming before the court. It’s as if they feel they have a right to beat you,” she said, noting that a protection order had not protected John’s ex-girlfriend, Yvonne Davy, the complainant in the matter, from his violence.

John’s appeal was rejected on a day that he learnt that his son had been murdered in Kingstown, a few hours earlier.

Police say that an unknown assailant shot 19-year-old Darren Davy, also known as “Precious”, of Pole Yard, Arnos Vale, to the left side of his face in Kingstownaround 1:35 a.m. Wednesday. He died in hospital. 

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Davy had been recently released from prison after the High Court granted him bail on a burglary charge.

During Wednesday’s appeal hearing, counsel Ronald “Ronnie” Marks rose amicus on John’s behalf and explained to the court that the prisoner had just received the news of his son’s death.

“… he is, understandably, upset,” Marks told the court, adding that he would assist John as he could, albeit in a limited capacity.

On March 26, 2018, Senior Magistrate Rickie Burnett, sitting at the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court, sentenced John to three years in jail, after he pleaded guilty, midtrial, to a charge that he had wounded Yvonne Davy by beating her in the head with a stone on Aug. 26, 2017.

In handing down the sentence, the magistrate said that the court takes a dim view of those types of crimes.

In hearing the appeal, Justice Blenman noted that Davy had had a protection order against John at the time of the wounding.

Marks said Davy and John were in a relationship, that she has a substance abuse problem and the children are in her custody.

“He has to look after the children,” the lawyer said, in explaining the contact between the two.

Marks further told the court that he understands that John’s 12-year-old daughter now lives on the street and is pregnant as there is nobody supervising them since her father was imprisoned.

“So how is he counterbalancing hitting her in her head with a stone? Does that justify hitting a woman with a stone in the head?” Justice Blenman said.

Renee Simmons, who represented the Crown in the appeal, told the court that at the time of the incident, the relationship between both parties had ended a year earlier.

“And what would justify taking a stone and hitting a woman in the head and beat her up?” the judge said.

Simmons said, “I agree.”

Justice of Appeal Davidson Baptiste, who, along with Justice of Appeal Gertel Thom completed the three-member appeal panel, told Marks that his (Marks’) hands seemed to be tied.

“Yes, they are,” Marks said, but added that the sentence is three years and John had already served 13 months.

Baptiste noted that John has previous convictions against the same complainant.

“They have a very, ahm–” Marks was saying when Baptiste said,

“Violent relationship,” Baptiste said.

“A very tumultuous relationship,” Marks said.

Marks said there was no excuse to wound the victim.

He, however, said that since then, “the situations, as I explained them, have gotten quite bad outside. And there are other persons, including his children, and there are other persons, his mother is here, his grandmother is here, who may be able to assist the court with more information with regard to that.”

Baptiste said what the court wanted to know was why that should affect the sentence.

“She had a protection order and that couldn’t protect her,” Blenman said.

Baptiste told the John that after listening to Marks, the court finds no basis to upset the sentence of three years’ imprisonment imposed by the magistrate.

“The factors in aggravation simply outweigh the factors in mitigation,” he said.

6 replies on “Too many cases of men beating women in St. Vincent — Appeal Court”

  1. Agustus Carr says:

    This is due to a long history of the Police not doing anything. Itks commendable the Police is now trying to do something about it. Criminality proliferates as a result of Government and Police inaction. Perhaps it’s time to now teach these men a lesson.

    We must not forget the sexual exploitation of our school girls by minibus drivers and their conductors. This too needs addressing.

  2. Top Economist says:

    Too much woman-beating, too much under-aged sex and pregnancy, too much violence, too much theft, too much murder, too much drugs, too much, too much! This family is a poster-child of Vincentian society.
    When will those in government pay more attention to the problems of our people, particularly those of lower income rather than making life comfortable for themselves? When are they going to stop raising taxes as fast as they can, destroying the incentives for investment so that investors will not want to invest; giving unbelievable and stupid TEMPORARY tax breaks to wealthy foreign companies just insures that they can come, deplete our resources and leave when it is all gone.
    Raising taxes raises the cost of everything making our products that are already too expensive, even more expensive. People do not want to pay a high price for low quality!
    The first step to solving our society problems is to work at getting rid of the “idle hands” in the “DEVIL’S WORKSHOP” that has become Saint Vincent. We all see that the government knows nothing about finance and economics. Venezuela was a poor country even before the USA started sabotage of thier economy. Thus all the poverty and violence there. They are governed by a buch of greedy idiots, just like Saint Vincent.

    Most countries in the world have significantly lowered Corporate taxes or other taxes to encourage investment. Most all countries have a multi-year waiver of that tax for ALL COMPANIES! Saint Vincent lowered the Corporate tax by 2% WHAT A JOKE!!! …and gives a waiver to rich foreigners but not poor locals. That is not going to turn heads in the investment club. The Vincentian Government says “We like youif you have alot of money, even if you have a bad idea. If you have a great idea and no money…GET LOST no waivers for you!

    We need a government that will significantly lower taxes FOR ALL! NOT JUST RICH FOREIGNERS! so that investors will want to invest or expand here and create thousands of jobs and get these lower-income people trained and occupied doing other things like concentrating on thier careers and not crime.

    We really need to vote-out the idiots that we have right now!

    1. C. ben-David says:

      Rubbish. This has nothing to do with high taxes or tax concessions to local and foreign investors, if only because the beating of women by their partners occurs among all socio-economic sectors of our society.

      Likewise, many young girls in middle class families also get pregnant at an early age but most of them are able to secure an abortion so their unwanted parenting does not ruin their lives.

      The root cause of the beating of women, teenage pregnancy, and criminal behaviour is the dysfunctional family organization — single-mother households with no resident male or a series of pass-by males coupled with incompetent parenting based on high rates of the physical abuse of children — that characterizes thousands of our homes, a feature that is itself rooted in our slavery heritage when such were the norm among the slave population.

      To be sure, not all single mothers are poor parents, but there is a strong statistical correlation between growing up in a loving home with faithful married parents and low levels of violence against women, getting pregnant between the age of 12 and 15, and criminal behaviour.

      1. C. Ben, What you say is generally true but you have indicated that you believe poverty and economics have nothing to do with crime. You are really lost on that one because it has been known throughout history that economics and poverty have very much to do with crime. It is very true that people act differently when they have enough money as compared to not enough.

        Obviously Top Economist is generalizing and he is right. For the most part you are the one writing rubbish! You truely are indoctrinated by the establishment. In spite of your very good intellect you really do need to wake-up!

  3. This man is a habitual woman beater even with the protection order he have the nerves to beat her with a stone. Now he want to put the blame on the woman saying she is a substance abuse woman, didn’t he knew that when he was with her looking for sympathy. He should stay his three years in prison due to his wicked behavior towards another human being he could have killed her that day. He abused the woman so much that is why the children didn’t have a strong will mother to protected her children because of the abuse from him. She left him a year past and he still thinks that you owns her, the son was in jail granted bail and the same day father was in court the son was shot, also daughter 12 years old on the street pregnant and who cause all that him no one to look up to so sad. Family always show up in court to say how good the abuser is, when they never stand up for the victim when she was being abused. Men like them need to teach a lesson yes he should have known better especially when they have children looking up to them. It is very sad, to know his 19 years old son died and 12 years old daughter pregnant on the streets some people would say its the sins of the father.

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