By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHE COURT of Appeal has called on Resident Magistrates to desist from sending people to prison without getting the benefit of a social enquiry report.
Mr. Justice Seymour Panton, in handing down the unanimous decision of the court in a wounding case last Thursday, said that it was important to get the reports especially when the Resident Magistrate intended to send the person to prison.
The court made the observation when it freed Devon Thomas, 27, a pump operator employed to the National Water Commission (NWC) who was sentenced to three months imprisonment at hard labour. A social enquiry report was not ordered in Thomas' case.
Thomas, of Kellits, Clarendon was convicted on May 25 this year in the Chapelton Resident Magistrate's Court of unlawful wounding. Evidence was given that he wounded Joseph Watson, a builder, of Kellits at a bar on April 25 this year.
Attorney-at-law Dwight Reece who represented Watson on appeal, submitted that the Resident Magistrate erred in his findings, because he concentrated on the inconsistencies in the case for the defence and therefore seemed to have shifted the burden of proof from the Crown to the defence.
The Court of Appeal, comprising Mr Justice Henderson Downer, Mr. Justice Donald Bingham and Mr. Justice Seymour Panton, upheld the submissions, quashed the conviction and set aside the sentence. Thomas was on bail pending the outcome of his appeal.
Watson had testified that he, a police constable and Thomas were in the bar having drinks, which he had bought for them, when the constable jokingly said to him "see you wife coming there to beat you." He said that he responded jokingly that, "some man take a woman with children and call them wife while some put on ring."
He said when he said that the constable took a glass that he was drinking from and crushed it on the left side of his face. The glass broke. He said he tried to get out of the bar and the constable forced him in a corner and Thomas cut him three times with a knife. He said he took a knife from his trousers pocket and stabbed at Thomas after he was wounded.
Thomas, said in his defence, that Watson was in the bar behaving in a disorderly manner and was spoken to several times to behave himself or leave. Constable Beadle also spoke to him. He said Watson stabbed him and then ran from the bar.
Thomas called several witnesses who supported his defence.
Resident Magistrate Herbert Wells found Thomas guilty and sentenced him to three months imprisonment.
