CLARK’S TOWN, Trelawny — Stephina “Apple” Ralston was yesterday nonplussed when she did not get an opportunity to speak with her “partner”, 34-year-old Anthony Bailey, whom she is adamant she has forgiven for brutally attacking her with a knife.

Bailey, yesterday, appeared in the Trelawny Parish Court to answer a charge of attempted murder. He was remanded in custody and steely faced police officers thwarted the 23-year-old Ralston’s efforts to speak with him after he was transported back to the Clark’s Town Police Station.

“I am in a free, democratic country and I can’t get to speak to my spouse. Like seriously?” asked an indignant Ralston, who told the Jamaica Observer she had not spoken with Bailey since the incident allegedly occurred. The 23-year-old, weeks ago, gave a chilling account alleging that the man with whom she shared a romantic relationship savagely knifed her during a fit of jealousy. She later declared that she had forgiven him, sparking backlash from some Trelawny residents who argued that she had made the parish’s women look like “yam heads”.

Yesterday, Ralston remained adamant that she wants the attempted murder charge brought against Bailey to be dropped by the court.

“I just don’t want the case to go any further and I don’t want to waste the court’s time. And, also, I don’t want to waste Jamaicans’ time. That’s it. I don’t want to, because I don’t want to be a time-waster. It’s time… now to focus on my education, and it’s time… now for my partner to come out and to help me towards my education and also towards my child,” she argued, insinuating that she is pregnant.

The Trelawny woman had harsh words for those who have questioned her decision to forgive her alleged attacker.

“There [are] a lot of time-wasters in Jamaica wha mi no know wha dem a deal wid. It’s my life and I choose what I want in my life. Father God know what him want fi mi and mi partner. Yeah, that’s it!” she said.

The allegations are that Bailey attacked and brutally stabbed Ralston in a shop at New Road, Warsop, in Trelawny moments before the start of the nightly curfew on April 15.

Bailey was subsequently arrested and charged with attempted murder.

When the matter was called up yesterday, the court was advised that Bailey’s lawyer Khadine Coleman had indicated that she was at the Trelawny Circuit Court and may not make it to the parish court that afternoon. She had asked, the court was told, that the matter be set for either June 28 or September 7.

“Mr Bailey, you have heard the message that your lawyer has sent to the court’s office. In the circumstances we are standing it down. Your lawyer says she is not sure she is going to be here today [yesterday]. We don’t know if she will be released from the circuit court to be here, so we are standing the matter down,” parish Judge Archer Hall advised Bailey.

Ralston did not appear in court but was later seen on the premises. In commenting on the alleged attack, she again came to Bailey’s defence telling the Observer, “Everybody makes mistakes.”