Resh­ma Ra­goonath

A de­fence at­tor­ney's non-ap­pear­ance in court drew the ire of San Fer­nan­do mag­is­trate Ali­cia Chankar yes­ter­day af­ter she was forced to ad­journ sen­tenc­ing of La Ro­maine grand­moth­er Jen­nifer Lal­man.

Lal­man, 52, of Pond Street, was con­vict­ed of as­sault­ing her 11-year-old grand­daugh­ter af­ter she plead­ed guilty to beat­ing the child on her head with a swiz­zle stick last month. The girl was im­me­di­ate­ly re­moved from Lal­man's cus­tody and placed in a home for chil­dren. Yes­ter­day, when Lal­man's mat­ter was called, Chankar, the Fourth Court mag­is­trate, asked if the child was in court and was told by po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Rus­sell Ra­moutar that the girl was at a chil­dren's home. The mag­is­trate ex­pressed her dis­plea­sure at hav­ing to ad­journ the mat­ter be­cause Lal­man's at­tor­ney could not at­tend court.

Chankar said she could not un­der­stand why the at­tor­ney, whom she chose not to name, did not heed her in­struc­tions. "This at­tor­ney was giv­en cer­tain in­struc­tions to be here to­day and he sent a note that he had a per­son­al dif­fi­cul­ty this morn­ing and wants the mat­ter ad­journed to Ju­ly 1 or Ju­ly 28," Chankar said.

Lal­man was charged with as­sault­ing the girl on May 15, oc­ca­sion­ing a wound. She was ar­rest­ed and charged by WPC De­Bourg. Chankar, who de­ferred pass­ing sen­tence on Lal­man to yes­ter­day, pend­ing a pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer's re­port, had al­so or­dered the woman to at­tend Al­co­holics Anony­mous class­es.

Chankar asked Lal­man when last she had seen her at­tor­ney and the woman replied: "Three days af­ter the mat­ter." Chankar, vis­i­bly up­set, said: "There were cer­tain things you were sup­posed to do and he was sup­posed to bring cer­tain things for me to­day."

She told Lal­man: "Come back here with your at­tor­ney on June 13." The mag­is­trate al­so or­dered that the child re­main at the home. Lal­man is on $10,000 bail with her hus­band, Ashraf Khan, as sure­ty. Ac­cord­ing to the facts in the case, an en­raged Lal­man grabbed a swiz­zle stick and dealt the child sev­er­al blows to her head caus­ing a wound. The child sought refuge at the home of a neigh­bour, Lavona Gabriel. Gabriel and the child made a re­port at the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion. The child was treat­ed at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.