By Latrishka Thomas
A woman was fined $100 while a man was fined $300 for a fight which ensued when the woman attempted to scold their son for having wrong answers on an assignment she had given him.
Deniscia George, of Gray’s Farm, was charged with unlawful wounding, being armed with the stick of a shovel and with a knife, while Ira Harris of Skerrits Pasture was charged with beating her.
The two were also jointly charged with disorderly conduct while fighting.
They both pleaded guilty to all of the charges against them in St John’s Magistrates’ Court yesterday.
The incident took place at George’s Parliament Street home on October 15 when she was at home with her two children and gave her 11-year-old son an English assignment to indicate the number of vowels and consonants.
And having provided wrong answers to questions that his younger sister was apparently able to answer correctly, the mother attempted to scold him, when the father walked in.
An argument erupted and Harris held George by her throat and punched her on the left side of her head.
George used a knife to stab him in his ear, and he kicked her and ran off.
She grabbed a shovel and chased him and struck him with the wooden stick.
The male defendant told the court yesterday that he asked the woman not to beat the child because his foot is injured and she asked him to leave her home, so he pushed her in an attempt to leave and struck her in defence to her actions.
The woman, however, explained in detail, that she arrived home that day having left the boy with an assignment to find that he was not at home despite having an injury to his foot.
Having gotten the assignment wrong, he was to get six lashes, George stated.
The boy had received the first three blows from a ruler when the father came by and fought her as she tried to deliver the other three lashes.
George gave a graphic account of the ordeal and even admitted to grabbing the shovel, thinking that it looked like the perfect instrument to beat the man in retaliation.
“Daddy told me not to mek no man bang me,” she stated.
She also told the magistrate that she hit Harris three times with the stick because “good, better, best”.
The magistrate believed the woman’s comprehensive report of the incident and therefore reprimanded her on the two charges of being armed with a weapon and the charge of wounding.
She was, however, fined $100 for disorderly conduct.
The man on the other hand was fined $200 for beating the mother of his son and $100 for disorderly conduct.
He was also warned not to pick a fight with the woman again.