King v Commissioner of Police

• Jurisdiction: Bahamas
• Judge: Sawyer, C.J.
• Judgment Date: 16 April 1999
• Court: Supreme Court (Bahamas)
• Docket Number: Appellant Side No. 39/1994
• Date: 16 April 1999

Supreme Court

Sawyer, J.

Appellant Side No. 39/1994

King

and

Commissioner of Police

Appearances:

Mr. Patrick Hanna for the appellant.

Mr. Bernard Turner for the respondent.

Criminal law - Appeal against conviction of causing harm contrary to s. 134(1) of the Penal Code, Ch. 77 — Conviction not against weight of evidence — Appeal dismissed.

Sawyer, C.J.

1 The appellant was convicted of the summary offence of causing harm, contrary to section 134(1) of the Penal Code (Ch. 77) by the then Chief Magistrate and sentenced to three months imprisonment.

2 The charge arose out of an incident which occurred on 7th February, 1994 following the finding, by the virtual complainant (who at the time was the appellant's wife) of a lady's lipstick in the “cabinet” of the car. She taxed him about it as well as about his staying out late every night and having slept out the entire night on two occasions.

3 Her evidence was that he punched her so that their baby dropped out of her hand and fell between the driver's seat. In the meantime, again according to the virtual complainant, the couple's twin daughters who were in the back of the car were also screaming and asking their daddy to stop.

4 In her evidence in chief she stated that after he pulled a knife from under the cup tray, she grabbed the knife from him as he was driving and told him that “for all the things you have put me through six years of my marriage, I would just f… you with this knife, but because of the love of Jesus, I will not.”

5 The altercation between them continued, she said until they got near a store in Coconut Grove area where the appellant, according to his wife, took a butcher knife from between the seats and she took that from him and threw it out of the window of the car. The appellant then parked the car in the middle of 6th Street the Grove, got his car keys and ran towards the butcher knife. The wife then handed the baby to the five-year old twin girls on the back seat of the car, got out and started running towards a shop on the corner of 6th Street as the appellant, she said, was after her with the butcher knife. She still had the dagger in her hand and she slammed it down so that it broke. She ran to the store and tried to get in but before she could do so, the appellant, she said, caught her at the store and spanked her three times in her back and across the hip, twice on her thighs with the knife.

6 According to her, when the appellant swung the knife at her neck, her hand went into the way and he chopped her twice on her...