The presence of a Sandy Bay man who has served prison time caused Magistrate Bertie to “start feel it again” at Georgetown Magistrate’s Court recently.
“When you came out ah prison?” Pompey asked the defendant, Raphael Lavia.
“Since 2021,” Lavia said.
“Your very presence starts to — I start feel it again,” Pompey said.
Lavia pleaded guilty to a charge that on Jan .27, he assaulted Jose Ann McFee, of Georgetown occasioning actual bodily harm.
McFee was pregnant with Lavia’s child at the time of the assault.
He pleaded not guilty to a charge that on Jan. 27, at Georgetown, he stole EC$400, McFee’s property.
According to the facts presented by Prosecutor Corporal 817 Stapleton, Lavia and McFee were in a common law relationship that produced one child.
On Jan. 27, about 1 p.m., McFee, a 25-year-old kitchen assistant, was having a barbecue at Baffles, in Georgetown, when she went to look for change at a nearby Lotto booth.
Lavia approached McFee and told her, “Me glad me come down yah. Me wah see you!”
Both parties began a conversation and the defendant got angry and took McFee’s phone. He also hit her in the face, resulting in injury.
In mitigation, Lavia told the court, “The injuries I read on the [report of injury] form ain’t nothing like that. I never struck her in the face. I never hit she!
“She pregnant again for me and I wouldn’t hit her,” Lavia told the court
“So why you plead guilty?” Pompey asked
Lavia said: “Because she was to be here and we done discuss that already.”
For the actual bodily harm, Lavia was fined EC$400 to be paid in one month or three months in prison.
On the theft charge, bail was set in the amount of EC$800 with one surety.
The matter was adjourned and transferred to the Calliaqua Magistrate’s Court.