Swan woman still haunted by October 2018 cutlass attack 

By Michel Outridge

FOLLOWING the brutal October 2018 cutlass attack on mother of six, Malicia Andrews at her mother’s home in Swan, Soesdyke-Linden Highway, it has been a long road to recovery and she is still trying to lead a normal life.

The Pepperpot Magazine caught up with Andrews at her home in Swan, which is just next door to her mother–Janet Domingo’s–home.

She said the scars are healing but she cannot forget what had occurred, causing her to be left physically and emotionally scarred for life.

Andrews, a soft-spoken woman, related that the extensive damage to her right hand included severed fingers and though some were re-attached after the incident, she has lost feelings in them; as such, she is unable to use them and cannot work to support her children.

“I tried getting public assistance but I didn’t get through because of the loads of paperwork, so what little is given by my family, especially my mother, I have to make do in sending the children to school, since my eldest is only 16 years old,” she said.
Presently, four of her six children are attending school and the transportation cost to and from school every day is adding up.

Andrews received 12 chop wounds to several parts of her body, including on her head, hands, arms, chest, ear and her neck, which was almost severed.
She explained that she is presently residing in her brother’s house and he is living in hers, because they wanted her close to her mother–who lives in the same yard–given her condition after the incident.

“I feeling better, but I does get numb by the nerves in my hand are damaged and I cannot get a job and I finding it difficult since my family is also struggling with their own. I spend a month in hospital and it was very hard for me. I didn’t know my child father had died until after I recovered and know myself,” Andrews said.
She told the Pepperpot Magazine that the incident is still fresh in her mind, but for the sake of her children she is trying to get over it.

“I does still remember and know everything – I does try not to think about it because of how it happened; we had no big problem, the hardest is trying to think why he did it, he was never at home and told me that people were sleeping at me and told him it was not so and he vex. I walked away and came to my mother’s and he followed and he start to misbehave,” she said.

Andrews explained that she didn’t tell her family what she was going through and she and her child father, Ian English, had a disagreement; he looked her in the face before he went up to the house and got a cutlass and began inflicting wounds on her.

She related that it was after he blurted out, “Oh is done you done with me,” and she tried fighting back but he overpowered her and chopped her multiple times.

Andrews, who was a cricketer for her village, is unable to play any matches to date and was asked to attend games, but prefers not to, since she would not be playing.
The incident

The incident happened when Andrews left her home after a row with 39-year-old Ian English, with whom she has a three-year-old child, when he accused her of being unfaithful.

The woman went to her mother’s house, a short distance away and English followed. There they had an argument which quickly turned heated when she refused to return home with him.

Janet Domingo, Andrews’ mother, tried to save her daughter but she was lashed twice by English who had a cutlass and pushed her down on a chair, after which he fired the first chop; it was then the elderly farmer began begging him to leave her alone and she escaped.

she ran to neighbours to alert them of what was happening in her house and they took Andrews to the hospital.

The chops almost severed her neck, and English, after committing the act, fled into some nearby bushes and hung himself.

His body was removed late that night by undertakers in the presence of the police.
English and Andrews had been living together for the past four years but he was married with eight children, the youngest being eight months old. While Andrews has six children, only one was fathered by the deceased.