Derek Achong

A 33-year-old woman, who be­came an In­ter­net sen­sa­tion through a cell­phone video de­pict­ed her in­volve­ment in a fight among Form Five school­girls yes­ter­day was fined $1,500. Melis­sa Hold­er, of Barataria, plead­ed guilty to as­sault oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm when she ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Chris­tine Charles in the Port-of-Spain Fifth Court. It was al­leged that Hold­er as­sault­ed a 17-year-old stu­dent, of Barataria North Sec­ondary School, last June 2. The video of the in­ci­dent caused pub­lic out­cry af­ter it was post­ed on sev­er­al so­cial net­work­ing sites, in­clud­ing Face­book and Youtube.

An­oth­er 17-year-old school­girl, who was in­volved in the al­ter­ca­tion, was give pro­ba­tion by Charles af­ter plead­ing guilty. Charles told Hold­er that as a grown woman she should not have got­ten in­volved in a fight among school­child­ren. Charles said: "You (Hold­er) are a grown woman. That kind of be­hav­iour is frowned up­on in T&T." Charles al­so or­dered Hold­er to pay the vic­tim $1,500 in com­pen­sa­tion for her in­juries, while the oth­er girl was or­dered to apol­o­gise to the court and to the vic­tim. The girl was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Criston J Williams while Hold­er was rep­re­sent­ed by Crys­tal Ay­ee.