Hospital janitor Dawn Roberts, who admitted to wounding colleague Deon Norton last November, was on Wednesday ordered to pay a $50,000 fine or spend three months in prison.
Acting Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry imposed the sentence after a probation report on the case was presented to the court.
Roberts, a janitor attached to a janitorial service contracted by the Georgetown Public Hospital, admitted that on November 23 at the hospital she unlawfully and maliciously wounded Norton. After Roberts’ explanation, however, the magistrate had entered a not guilty plea for her.
The prosecution’s facts were that the two women, both janitors at the hospital, were involved in an argument which escalated into a physical encounter. During the altercation, Prosecutor Stephen Telford told the court, Roberts dealt Norton several cuts across her face with an object and then made good her escape. She was later apprehended, arrested and charged for the offence.
Roberts had told the court that it was Norton who first attacked her and that she was merely acting in self-defence. She explained that she and her co-worker were on duty when they started to argue. According to her, during a scuffle that ensued, a fan that was close by fell and she [Roberts] saw a rusty razor blade lying beneath the fan, which she used to cut the complainant across her face in an act of self-defence. “I use the rusty razor blade under the fan and cut she with it fuh defend meself,” she said.
At a subsequent hearing, a probation report was ordered into the matter to guide sentencing.
