Teen who assaulted his principal, stepfather jailed for attacking mother

The Richland Park teen who beat his stepfather with a metal pipe in June 2023, one year after attacking his principal with brass knuckles has been jailed for attacking his mother with a knife.

Ajauné Grant will spend one year and four months in prison for his crime.

He pleaded guilty before the Biabou Magistrate’s Court to charges that on Sept. 1, at Richland Park, he assaulted Keneisha Grant, of Richland Park, with intent to commit an offence to wit assault occasioning bodily harm.

He also pleaded guilty to a charge that he assaulted his mother, occasioning actual bodily harm, also on Sept. 1 at Richland Park.

“Mr. Grant, are you ok?” Magistrate Kaywana Jacobs asked as she handed down the sentence in Calliaqua.

“I listening you,” the teen responded.

“Mr. Grant, you have been bonded, you have been fined, you have been reprimanded and discharged. The only thing I have not seen here is a suspended sentence,” Jacobs said, adding that a bond is almost akin to a suspended sentence.

“You didn’t even offer any apology and this is your mother you are talking about. So, Mr. Grant, I have to agree with the prosecutor that a custodial sentence is necessary in this case.”

After the sentence was handed down, Grant asked the magistrate if he would serve his time at the prison in Kingstown.

Jacobs told him that that was a question for the prison authorities.

Presenting the facts to the court, Corporal of Police 29 Nolan Barker said that the defendant is the virtual complainant’s (VC) only child and they live together.

On Aug. 30, about 9 p.m., they were at home when the teen asked his mother for money to buy food.

The VC told him to go to Gregory Stephens for some food and she would pay.

The defendant went and asked Stephens for $10. His mother later confronted him about this but the teen got annoyed and took up a knife and went to her room.

The following day, Aug. 31, about 10 a.m., the defendant went and sat at the table with a knife and was looking at his mother.

Then, on Sept. 1, about 9:30 a.m., the teen woke up and began walking about with the knife in his hand.

His mother was cleaning her room when the defendant approached her, grabbed her by the neck, began to choke her with his left hand and put the knife to her neck.

The mother wrestled with her son and the knife broke. She called for help and neighbours went to assist her.

The defendant ran.

The matter was reported to police who investigated and arrested the teen. He opted not to give a statement to the investigator.

Prosecutor’s ‘heavy heart’

Asked if he had anything to say in mitigation, the teen told the magistrate that he had nothing to say.

He told the court that he was 19 and worked in construction, his last day on the job being Sept. 2, when police arrested him.

In making his submission on sentencing, prosecutor Delando Charles told the court that he was doing so “with a heavy heart.

“The records show it is not his first rodeo,” the prosecutor said, adding that the court had tried to have Grant go through counselling so he could be reformed. 

“The VC is his mother. While I agree that given his age he may be a good candidate for reform, his lengthy conviction record tells me that he is way passed that, even at his age,” the prosecutor said.

He asked the court to send a message to Grant and other youngsters that that type of behaviour would not be tolerated and that the court would not look at the offence slightly. 

“Maybe he needs to hear iron bars close behind him,” Charles said.

He said the prosecution was submitting that based on Grant’s criminal record, the extant offence, the attempt to reform him that he be sent to prison.

“I am asking the court to consider deterrence to deter him and others. I am asking for a custodial sentence,” the prosecutor said and noted that the offence carries a maximum of five years imprisonment.

After considering the mitigating and aggravating features of the case, the magistrate arrived at a sentence of two years.

The court granted the full one-third discount for the early guilty plea, leaving a sentence of one year and four months.

On the criminal assault charge, Grant was sentenced to seven months in prison, to run concurrent to the other sentence.

In March 2023, Grant beat his stepfather with a metal pipe in an unprovoked attack that resulted in actual bodily harm and damaged his cellular phone, valued at EC$800.

However, Crown Counsel Rose-Ann Richardson, as well as lawyer Israel Bruce, who the court asked to represent the teen, argued against sending him to jail.

Then Senior Magistrate Rickie Burnett bonded Grant for one year in the sum of EC$2,500 or nine months in prison.

Burnett said it may be the teen’s personality “but looking at him, he appears a little angry to me”.

That attack had followed one in May 2022 when Grant went to Mountain View Adventist Academy while suspended from classes and attacked his principal with brass knuckles.

In June 2023, Grant was ordered to pay EC$10,500 after pleading guilty to a charge that on May 31, 2023, at Richmond Hill, he used motor vehicle RS174 without the consent of the owner or any other lawful authority.

The teen caused EC$8,000 in damage to the vehicle.

Back then, Grant told the court that he wanted to join the British Army.