Man gets shocking $50,000 fine after attacking neighbour over $400
A Kingston man is now wishing he could turn back the hands of times after he attacked his neighbour for $400 owed to him for ackees but was slapped with a $50,000 fine when he appeared in court.
Damion Wizzard, who the court heard punched his neighbour all over the body, appeared shocked when he was fined by Parish Judge Chester Crooks on Friday after he pleaded guilty to assault occasioning bodily harm. If the fine is not paid he will serve six months in prison.
Wizzard, before the sentence was handed down, told the court that the complainant refused to pay him and had repeatedly ignored his request for the money.
“I sell her some ackees and she gave me part of the money, but when me go back to her she ignore me and it just continue like that from that day,” he said.
Wizzard said that when he realised he was not getting anywhere with the complainant he went to her boyfriend, but he too failed to get through to her.
However, he said on May 3 when the incident occurred, his wife came and told him that she wanted something to give the children to eat, and as a result he went again to ask the complainant for his money.
“I don’t know what burst in her head when I ask her that last time. She tell me some explicit words and I hit her in her head and slapped her in the face, but I apologise for it,” Wizzard said.
The complainant, for her part, told the court that she was absent from work three days as a result of the beating.
“I wet on myself when it happen,” she said.
The complainant also reported that she had to be relocated at work because she was unable to properly answer the phone at the hospital where she is employed as an telephone operator because of the injuries to her mouth, and would like to be compensated. She also told the court that she has an MRI scan to do.
But Wizzard told the court that the complainant bit him on his broken finger.
The judge, however, told her that she will have to sue Wizzard, especially since she might have suffered long-standing injuries.
Judge Crooks, before fining Wizzard, told him that regardless of the explicit words that he was told by the complainant he had no right to put his hands on her.
“Frankly, all of that over $400. You could have gone and sue her and you would have probably gotten more,” he said.