Dancers leave drinker high and dry
The Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court erupted in laughter Thursday when a man who was accused of failing to pay his liquor bill claimed that two women who were dancing with him in a bar disappeared with his money.
Lesley Knight, a 43-year-old driver of Red Hills in St Andrew, was arrested and charged with obtaining credit by fraud after he went to a bar in Rockfort, Kingston, and racked up a bill for $3,050, but could not produce the funds to settle the bill.
The incident took place on November 8, around 8:30 pm.
On Thursday, Knight pleaded guilty with explanation to the charge.
“I was at the bar having a few rum with two girls — one a dance a back and one a dance a front,” he said, eliciting laughter from people in the court.
“Me did have $4,100 in a mi pocket and when me ready fi pay the bill me nuh see dem nor the money,” he said as the laughter continued.
Knight further explained to Senior Magistrate Judith Pusey that he did not have any intention to defraud the bartender, as he had given her his driver’s licence to hold as security after realising that his money was missing.
He then told the court that he now has the money to pay the bartender.
Pusey asked the bartender if he was telling the truth and she confirmed that Knight had given her his driver’s licence.
The magistrate instructed him to pay over the money to the bartender and made a no-order ruling in the matter.
“Next time you going to have a few rum, put the money in your shoes,” Pusey advised him as he left the court.
Jealous rage
A young man who was hauled before the RM Court for chasing his then girlfriend with a knife also had the court in stitches when he claimed he was overcome by jealousy after seeing her at a dance.
Jermaine Brown, 19, appeared before the court on a charge of assault at common-law.
The complainant, Keisha Genius, told the court that she was inside her house when Brown chased her with a knife and stabbed at her.
She told the court that she did not think that he wanted to harm her, but was doing it to threaten her.
However, when Brown was asked by Senior Magistrate Judith Pusey why he was chasing Genius with the knife, he said, “Cause me did feel jealous in a way.”
He added: “Me and she in a relationship and me deh a one party and see har and me feel a likkle jealous, plus me did give har money earlier fe feed har family.”
Pusey then asked the complainant if they were still together and she said that the relationship had ended. However, she begged the magistrate not to sentence Brown, but to warn him, instead, to stay away from her.
“So you spoil up the little thing; she don’t want nothing more to do with you so stay away from her,” Pusey warned Brown.
But after the magistrate was finished warning Brown to keep his distance, Genius again asked her: “Please tell him to leave me alone.”
“You never hear me a tell him, you think me is a love doctor?” Pusey replied before throwing out the matter.
Stolen jewellery costs man $30,000
A man who pawned his girlfriend’s gold chain without her knowledge and then clobbered her in her face with a knife when she questioned him about the missing jewellery appeared before the court Thursday.
In addition to being charged with theft, 46-year-old Phillip Atkins of a Kingston 10 address was also accused of using a knife to hit the complainant on the left side of her face when she confronted him about the jewellery.
Atkins was arrested and charged with simple larceny and assault occasioning bodily harm, to which he pleaded guilty.
However, he told the court that he pawned the jewellery for $2,500 so that he could get money to pay a utility bill and that his spouse was aware of his action.
But the complainant denied his story.
“I have the chain wrapped up in a piece of tissue on my dresser and everytime mi clean the dresser mi see the tissue, so all the time I thought it was there, I never knew that it was missing,” she said.
The complainant also told the court that it was after Atkins had pawned the gold chain that he told her about it.
She also said he did not pawn it to pay any utility bill as there was no outstanding bill at the time. He used the money, she said, to carry out repairs on his car.
Senior Magistrate Judith Pusey then asked her how much she wanted for her chain and she said $20,000.
The magistrate added a further $10,000 for the complainant’s injury and instructed Atkins to return to court with the sum on November 26 for his sentencing.
Injured robber tries to disarm cop in operating theatre
An armed robbery suspect who was at the Kingston Public Hospital for medical treatment reportedly hit a policeman several times while trying to disarm him of his firearm.
The Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court heard last Thursday that Kareem Campbell was at the hospital on September 20 for treatment to a gunshot wound, which he had received during an alleged armed robbery earlier in day and had just came out of surgery when the incident occurred.
The court was told that the policeman had placed Campbell in a wheelchair to take him back to his room and was about to place his feet on the foot rests when Campbell lunged at him and held onto his service pistol.
The cop held onto the accused man’s hand and managed to get it off his firearm, but received several punches to his back and abdomen in the process.
It is also reported that the accused man wrapped his hands around the cop’s neck, hit him in his head and choked him while shouting to him, “Gimme de gun nuh bwoy!”
The court was also told that Campbell threw the policeman to the ground and started to fight him for his gun. But another policeman came to his colleague’s aid.
The cop who was attacked was reportedly bleeding from his nose and received injuries to his neck, back, shoulder and head.
“What does he have to say after all that excitement?” Senior Magistrate Judith Pusey asked Campbell’s lawyer, Ramona Nelson, on hearing the allegations.
“He is not guilty,” Nelson answered.
However, the attorney indicated that she was not seeking bail for him at present. As such, he was remanded into custody.
He is scheduled to return to court on December 6.
‘Ganja made me do it’
A man who was mobbed and beaten after he robbed a woman of her mobile phone claimed marijuana made him commit the deed.
“I tek a little puff and I don’t know what came over me. I just went up and grab her phone,” Rudolf Atkinson told the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to larceny from the person.
“I don’t even know what kind of phone it was,” he said further when Magistrate Simone Wolfe-Reece asked him about the brand of phone that he had stolen.
Atkinson was arrested and charged after he saw the woman talking on her cellular phone, came behind her, grabbed it and ran.
He was, however, held and beaten by a group of men who recovered the phone and handed him over to a passing police officer.
But Robinson also explained to the court that he had a cellular phone, which was stolen, and that the person who had it kept giving him the run-around.
He said that on the day in question he was speaking to his friend about it and his friend advised him to “just tek a phone”.
Atkinson said that it was after he took a smoke of his friend’s spliff that he went ahead, grabbed the woman’s cellular phone and was walking away when he heard her shout out “Thief!”
“Smart woman,” the magistrate interjected.
But Atkinson also complained that not only was he mobbed, but he was also robbed.
“So, after you robbed the woman phone them mobbed and robbed you?” Wolfe-Reece asked.
“Yes, my phone and my chain,” he answered.
The magistrate then sentenced him to pay a fine of $30,000 or serve six months in prison.