curses over A man who caused an uproar at St. Ann’s Bay Resident Magistrates court on Friday, September 12, and entered the courtroom using expletives, missed spending the weekend in jail after he fell at the mercy of the magistrates. “Take him back downstairs, he has no manners, he has no respect, he can’t be entering the court and behaving like that, I will deal with him on Monday,” RM Andrea Thomas told an accused Jovain Miller. The man claimed he was cursing because a policeman hit his hand against a grill after the policeman told him to put on a shirt and he told the cop he had no other shirt. Miller was in police custody and had appeared before RM Thomas the day before, charged with wounding with intent.
It is alleged that on July 5, he used a fish gun to shoot another man in the chest at Exchange in Ocho Rios, St. Ann. During that hearing, Miller denied that he attacked and shot the man, who the court was told had to be hospitalized. RM Thomas had remanded him into custody until Friday to consider bail. But his loud uproar, which disrupted court proceedings, even before he entered the courtroom, almost pushed him into deeper trouble. After the magistrate said she would not deal with him until Monday, because of his behaviour, the accused began cursing just as he was being escorted from the courtroom.
NOT FRIGHTENED
This prompted the magistrates to call the accused back into court where she gave him a stern warning and told him that she was less than impressed with his poor behaviour and that she was not frightened by it. “You don’t have any manners,” she told Miller who told the court that he only behaved that way because of how the policeman treated him as he was being taken from the holding area. He told the court that he didn’t want to stay in jail and that he wanted to be released so he could go to classes at ”JAMAL’ (JFLL) and continued learning his mechanics trade. RM Thomas told the accused that there was a proper way to report the abuse of the policeman to the court, but said his cursing of expletives, as he entered the courtroom, was far from acceptable. Miller begged the judge to be lenient with it.
“Your Honour, you couldn’t just give me a pardon and mek me deal with it gentle,” he begged. His matter was stood down. When the RM revisited the case, she again told the accused that she would not tolerate such behaviour, but would give him an opportunity to make things right. After asking the magistrate how he could make things right, Miller later told the court that he was sorry for using indecent language and that it wouldn’t happen again. He was later offered bail in the sum of $60,000 with sureties. As a condition of his bail, Miller was ordered to report to the police in Ocho Rios on Mondays and Wednesdays. Additionally, he was ordered to stay away from the Exchange area. Miller is to return to court on December 5.
