GREAT BAY – Elecquo Richard Wilson signed for a conditional dismissal with the prosecutor’s office but did not follow it up. Hence he was in court on Thursday for hitting a man with a bottle after an argument at a supermarket in Middle Region on July 30, 2013. The court sentenced him to a 500-guilders fine, but it denied the victim’s claim for damages to the tune of $4,500 because it was insufficiently substantiated.
The 24-year old defendant said that he had signed the conditional dismissal but that in the end he did not have the money to pay the 300-guilder fine. He admitted he had hit the victim, after the man told him he would kill him. He hit the man with a bottle; the injuries required three stitches.
The victim claimed $4,500 in damages – $100 for the five days he had been unable to work, and $4,000 for medical treatment in Colombia.
Prosecutor Tineke Kamps noted that there is evidence the defendant hit his victim with a bottle. “There is however also evidence that the victim uttered threats, so he also played a role. The defendant hit him hard and the consequences could have been worse.”
The prosecutor said that it was rather dumb of the defendant not to follow through on the offer of a conditional dismissal. She also found the claim for damages from the victim insufficiently substantiated and asked the court to reject it. She said that Wilson’s actions had not been self-defense and asked the court to impose a fine of 500 guilders.
Judge Mauritz de Kort told the defendant that the fine was “very mild” but that he would agree with it. He ordered the defendant to pay it within six months, or – in case of non-compliance – spend 10 days in jail.
“It was not necessary to hit him, you could have walked away,” the judge said. He declared the victim’s claim inadmissible and warned the defendant that he could be facing a possible civil claim for these expenses in the future.
Source TODAY NEWSPAPER
