– ‘…drunk or sober, know your number,’ warns Magistrate Sobers
“This court does not look kindly on men who beat women… drunk or sober, know your number,” Magistrate Leslie Sobers admonished a 51-year-old New Hope, East Bank Demerara resident on Tuesday, before handing him a 10-month prison sentence. The prisoner, a watchman, had appeared before him to answer a charge of  ‘assault to cause actual bodily harm’  committed against his wife,  Margaret Latchman, on Sunday last, at their New Hope residence to which he pleaded guilty.

Narrating particulars of the incident in the Providence Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, Police Prosecutor Sergeant Shellon Daniels said that, earlier on the day in question, Persaud and Latchman visited the West Coast of Demerara where they had “a few drinks”.

On their return home, Persaud bought a quarter (rum) and he and wife continued drinking.
However, during the course of the imbibing, Persaud asked his wife to accompany him for ‘a walk’ and when she refused, he dealt her some slaps.

Persaud admitted to the court that he slapped the woman and, according to him, it was because she refused when he asked her to go for a walk.

The Magistrate then queried whether the woman does not have a right to decline the invitation.
“You do not know whether she was feeling well or not, you all were drinking, what if she was too tipsy to walk. What manner of man are you… you only want to satisfy your own desire?” chided the magistrate before admonishing him of the courts’ tolerance.

It was on being told that it was Persaud’s first offence that Magistrate Sobers spoke of the court’s zero tolerance for wife beaters and advised Persaud that the penalty for such an offence is 18 months imprisonment.

However, the court took note of his being a first-time offender, hence a 10-month jail sentence was imposed, but not before the prisoner was warned by the magistrate that should he ever return before him again for such an offence, he will have to serve the full sentence, which is the remaining eight months.
Persaud, dressed in a grey-looking boxer shorts and tee-shirt, presented quite a pathetic picture as he was led out of court with tears streaming down his face to begin serving his sentence.