Trinidad: Women spared jail time after fist fight in police station over Facebook

(Trinidad Guardian) A Face­book squab­ble be­tween two women es­ca­lat­ed in­to a fist fight in a po­lice sta­tion on Tues­day and they both end­ed up in court for the of­fence.

Af­ter part­ing the fight be­tween Jami­ka Joachim, 23, a fi­nal year uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent and Lamar­sha Joseph, 31, a moth­er and stu­dent, were ar­rest­ed and charged by of­fi­cers of the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion.

They spent the night in the sta­tion and were tak­en be­fore San Fer­nan­do Se­nior Mag­is­trate Jo-Anne Con­nor on Wednes­day where they plead­ed guilty to dis­turb­ing the peace at the po­lice sta­tion by fight­ing.

The fight took place around 12.15 pm in the re­cep­tion area and ac­cord­ing to one of the de­fence lawyers the dis­pute be­tween the women may have been sparked “as a re­sult of an im­mi­nent mé­nage à trois.”

Court pros­e­cu­tor Cley­on Seedan said WPC Harnar­i­nesingh saw the women ex­chang­ing blows and of­fi­cers had to in­ter­vene to part the fight.

He said when WPC Harnar­i­nesingh spoke with the women, Joachim said, “All yuh ent see she hit me first,” while Joseph said, “She post­ing thing on Face­book about me.”

The women, who stood next to each oth­er in the pris­on­ers’ dock in the First Court, ad­mit­ted the ver­sion of events from the pros­e­cu­tion.

Their at­tor­neys plead­ed with the mag­is­trate to give the women a chance as they were trau­ma­tised hav­ing spent the night in cus­tody.

Seedan con­firmed that they were first-time of­fend­ers. Joachim’s at­tor­ney Ains­ley Lucky said Joachim, of White­land Road, Williamsville, went to the po­lice sta­tion to make a re­port.

He said the fra­cas “could have been as a re­sult of an im­mi­nent mé­nage à trois.” Lucky said Joachim, who is study­ing so­cial sci­ences, was em­bar­rassed and re­gret­ted the in­ci­dent.

When asked by the mag­is­trate whether she want­ed to apol­o­gise, Joachim turned to Joseph and said, “Sor­ry.”

Joseph was al­so in­vit­ed to apol­o­gise to Joachim. She, how­ev­er, apol­o­gised in gen­er­al to every­one af­fect­ed by her ac­tions. She com­plained that the in­ci­dent stemmed from “Face­book provo­ca­tion and lack of re­spect.”

She asked the mag­is­trate to warn Joachim to “please stop ha­rass­ing me.”

The mag­is­trate ad­vised her to seek le­gal ad­vice.

In ask­ing for le­nien­cy, Joseph’s at­tor­ney Ved Tre­bouhans­ingh sub­mit­ted that she is a moth­er of three and lives with the fa­ther of two of her chil­dren at Union Hall, San Fer­nan­do.

“She has learnt her les­son,” he said.

Con­sid­er­ing their clean record and the time they spent in cus­tody, the mag­is­trate rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged both of them.