A bus driver who hit his babymother in her face several times with a ratchet knife, claiming she was ungrateful for objecting to the $2,500 that he gave her for their child, was slapped with a $50,000 fine.

Fabian Wint, 32 of Lawrence Tavern, St Andrew, who was fined by Senior Parish Judge Andrea Pettigrew-Collins after pleading guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm, will, however, serve six months in prison if the fine is not paid.

According to the complainant in her statement, on February 20 she was standing at a shop in Lawrence Tavern with a male friend when Wint drove up and said: “Hey gal, come here.”

She said she went to his bus and asked him for money for their five-year-old child and an argument started.

During the dispute the complainant said that Wint pulled his ratchet knife and hit her in her forehead twice. The complainant said she told him some lewd words pertaining to his mother and he proceeded to hit her all over her face with the knife.

The matter was reported to the police and Wint, when cautioned, reportedly told the police: “A diss she diss me enuh. If a did you, you would a do the same thing.”

Judge Pettigrew-Collins then told the complainant that she should have ignored Wint, as she does not regard herself as a ‘gal’.

But Wint, before he was sentenced, told the court that he was sorry for what had happened but said it was the complainant who had approached him with anger and also assaulted him.

“She came to me for money, me give her $2,500 and tell her that’s all me have because mi bus bruck down from last week, and she say that caaa do nutten and start get angry. That is when I kunk har and say, ‘You too ungrateful,’ and she push the bus door and start give me bar lick inna mi face,” he said.