Andrew Barnwell of Plaisance, East Coast Demerara, was on Thursday remanded to prison for allegedly beating a woman to her head with glass bottles.
Barnwell, 42, denied the summary charge of unlawful wounding after it was read by acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court. It was alleged that on July 14, he unlawfully and maliciously wounded Deborah Langevine.
Langevine, who was present in court with her head bandaged, said on the night of the incident she was at a party when Barnwell called her and instructed her to go home. She told him she would do so after visiting her children, who do not live with her. She explained that when she got home, she was greeted by Barnwell who immediately started beating her. She said he picked up two glass bottles and dealt her several blows to her head. At the time, she was in her front yard, she said, so she ran inside and locked the door. But a furious Barnwell broke the louvre panes of her front window and gained entry into the house to continue the beating, she added. She noted that it was only because her mother intervened that Barnwell stopped beating her.
Barnwell, however, told the court that he and Langevine had been together for several months until the night of the incident. He said that she called him over to her home just after midnight but when he got there he had to knock on the door several times before she finally came to answer it. He noted that Langevine greeted him wrapped in a towel with another man standing next to her.
He said she then insisted that he leave but when he refused to move she got upset and after arming herself with several glass bottles she threw them at him. He noted that Langevine, in a rage, broke two of the bottles and was running towards him to attack him but he threw his shirt in her face and swiftly stepped aside, causing her to run into a wall instead, resulting in her injury. He noted that a while after he left Langevine’s home, a mobile police patrol caught up with him and he was later taken to the police station where he was charged.
Langevine refuted Barnwell’s account of what happened. The magistrate transferred the case to Court Two for July 23.
