Vendor gets two years’ probation for assaulting woman

A St James man, who attacked a woman when she refuted his assertions that they knew each other, received two years' probation when he appeared in the St James Parish Court on Thursday.

Ray Smith, a 38-year-old clothes vendor, was before the court for sentencing on the charge of assault occasioning bodily harm.

According to court documents, on June 26, the complainant was talking with a co-worker at her workplace at a bar in downtown Montego Bay, when Smith approached them and claimed that he knew her.

When the woman declared that she did not know him, he slapped her in the face. A report was made to the police, and Smith was subsequently arrested and charged.

"How was your time in custody?" Presiding Parish Judge Natiesha Fairclough-Hylton asked Smith, referencing the three weeks he had spent behind bars.

"This is my first time in custody and I am begging a chance because I never boxed her [complainant], I only shoved her," Smith pleaded. "I learned my lesson. I don't give trouble, I'm not a troublemaker."

"But you put your hand on her, and I find it very hard to believe that this lady is saying that she doesn't know you, you're insisting that you know her, and then the next thing you are doing is to put your hands on her," Fairclough-Hylton said.

"I was drinking rum. I'm begging a chance because I'm a good youth and I'll never do that again," Smith insisted, adding that he has two children who are depending on him.

"Don't take what you can't manage, sir," the judge quipped.

Eventually, she granted Smith's petition for a chance at freedom, on the grounds that it was his first

brush with the law.

"I am giving you that chance, and for the next two years you are to work with the probation officers. They will teach you how to conduct yourself appropriately and how to deal with your anger issues," the judge said.