A protection order is not just a simple piece of paper.
This was the stern message sent yesterday by Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar after she sentenced two men for breaching protection orders brought against them by their respective companions.
In the first case, Keston Herbert collapsed and had to be helped by police officers to stand after being sentenced to a total of 78 months in jail for breaching the order on three separate occasions.
However, Herbert will only serve 36 months as the sentences will run concurrently. After regaining composure each time the sentences were read out, Herbert wailed in the courtroom. At one time a woman, identified as his mother, was heard comforting him.
Herbert pleaded guilty for breaching the order on December 8 and 14, 2015 and again on March 11, 2016 by using obscene language and threatening the mother of his child.
Herbert was charged by Constables Ronaldo Dopwell and Kadeem Williams, both of the Central Police Station, Port-of-Spain.
For the first two offences he was sentenced to 18 months and 24 months respectively while he was sentenced to 36 months for the final offence.
The court heard that on March 11, Herbert, of Hibiscus Drive, Petit Valley, called the woman’s workplace and threatened to kill her, burn down the business and get herfired after cursing her.
On December 14, Herbert went to the Barataria Health Centre where he became abusive towards the woman and told a nurse who sought to intervene that she was his “child mother” and he loved her.
About a week prior, Herbert met the woman at City Gate, Port-of-Spain, where he tried to grab their child from her saying he had not seen his child for a year.
The protection order was issued in May 2015 and had a three-year life span. Six months after it was granted Herbert breached the order.
It was this first offence that persuaded the Chief Magistrate to not follow the plea of Herbert’s attorney, Natalie Sanchez-Andrews in asking for a non-custodial sentence.
Ayers-Caesar said the law required that on the second breach of the order a person can be fined, jailed or both.
She added that a message needed to be sent to others who believed protection orders were just pieces of paper and were trivial.
“A protection order is not just a piece of paper and people need to get rid of that mindset. It is a means of protecting people from abusive relationships.
“This court and society take a serious view of breaching a protection order whether it is a man or a woman,” Ayers-Caesar said as she sentenced Herbert.
Herbert’s attorney said her client was commendable for wanting to see his child and that was the only reason he had breached the order four times. She added that in today’s society, a man wanting his child should be highlighted because it was so uncommon.
After sentencing Herbert, Ayers-Caesar said she hoped some organisation could get involved and seek to rehabilitate perpetrators of domestic violence because it was a serious offence.
The other case
The second offender was sentenced to three months in jail with hard labour.
Corwin Floyd, of Factory Road, Diego Martin, pleaded guilty to breaching the order on January 24. Floyd, 32, pleaded guilty to the offence, stating, like Herbert, he just wanted his child.
He admitted that on the day he tried to take his son from his mother and was denied.
Floyd told the court that Sundays were the only days he was allowed time with his child and the day before he was told he would never see his child again.
He also confirmed that he left and returned to the woman’s home with a cutlass which he used to smash a cellphone he grabbed from an eight-year-old girl who attempted to call the police when he arrived.
Floyd cried that he was willing to compensate the family for the phone and for the past two-and-a-half months he had been clearing three acres to plant tomatoes which would be ready by the end of this month or early next month.
He added that the reason it took police that long to find him was because he was spending most of his time in his garden.
“This restraining order come like a burden on me, ma’am, because I can’t go by she (the child’s mother) to collect my child. I feeling real spited,” Floyd said.
Floyd, the court heard, had another breach of protection order pending before another magistrate.
He was then sentenced to three months for breaching the order, three months for maliciously damaging the cellphone and ordered to pay $800 in compensation within one month of spending six weeks in prison.
The sentences are to run concurrently.
— See Page A11