A 23-year-old Georgetown woman has been bonded for assaulting her cousin by throwing peppermint oil in her face.
Georgetown Magistrate Bertie Pompey bonded Nyra Griffith for one year in the sum of EC$1,000 or three months in prison after finding her guilty of assault, occasioning actual bodily harm.
The virtual complainant, Brit Griffith, 20, told the court that on July 22, about 7:30 p.m. at Georgetown, she was on her way to Triple R supermarket when the defendant, who was sitting on one Kamal’s porch, approached her and said, “Look me here. Do me whey yo have to do me!”
Brit Griffith said she told her cousin, “Not me and you today!”
She said as she was walking away, “Nyra hold me and sprayed thing in my face.”
She said the defendant also dragged her inside Kamal’s yard, which the police estimated to be a distance of 35 feet.
The complainant told the court she felt “bad” and her eyes were burning when the contents from the bottle were sprayed in her face.
She also told the court that the defendant left the scene after Kamal intervened, telling the defendant, “Watch how you going jail.”
Brit Griffith told the court that Kamal also went and informed her mother of the incident.
Investigating officer Police Constable 605 Mc Dowald testified that when the virtual complainant made the report both of her eyes appeared red and were watering.
She said the defendant complained of pain about her face and eyes and as a result she issued her copies of medical forms, which the virtual complainant later returned with the doctor’s findings.
Mc Dowald said that while executing a search warrant on the defendant’s home, the defendant gave her a peppermint oil bottle and told her that that was what she had in her hands during the incident.
Nyra Griffith, who occasionally wiped her eyes during the hearing, told the court she did not have anything to say in her defense but would rely on the caution statement.
When asked, she told the magistrate she quit school in form 2 due to financial constraints and had completed training in electrical wiring but was unemployed.
She told the court that she had the peppermint oil bottle at the time of the altercation because she had a cold.
The defendant said she did not deliberately pour the contents of the bottle on her cousin, adding that some of it fell on the complainant’s face during the fracas.
In handing down his verdict, Pompey said the defendant went prepared with the peppermint oil bottle and deliberately threw the contents in her cousin’s face.
“You went with revenge on your mind,” the magistrate said.
The magistrate decided to impose a bond after the defendant said she was unemployed.