A 20-year-old trainee at HEART Training Institute in Runaway Bay, St. Ann was offered bail last Tuesday, March 10, when he appeared in court on a charge of wounding with intent.The accused Derrick Pendergast is also charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Presiding magistrate Peter Wilson offered the youth bail in the sum of $150,000 with one or two sureties. As a condition of his bail Pendergast is to report to the Runaway Bay police twice weekly. The RM also placed the trainee under curfew, prohibiting from being outside the campus of the training institute where he is a boarder later than 7 p.m. and before 6 a.m daily. The court heard that, prior to the stabbing, there was a dispute over the use of one of the school’s bathrooms. On the day of the stabbing, the complainant was reportedly preparing to use the bathroom when he was attacked by two men including Pendergast. He was stabbed in the upper left side of his back and sustained a punctured lung. The second man implicated in the stabbing has also been charged and his case is also before the court. In court last Tuesday, RM Wilson encouraged the accused to pay more attention to his books, and make use of the opportunity he has been given instead of being involved in incidents such as the one for which he is charged. “You have an opportunity to go to HEART , to get a skill and that is the skill you learn?” RM Wilson asked, apparently referring to the alleged stabbing. “No sir,” the accused replied. “You have an opportunity and you look like you want to throw it away, this kind of business is not for you, classroom business is for you,” the RM warned. The case is to go back to court on March 19.
