Resh­ma Ra­goonath

A Co­coyea teenag­er who bit a school­mate on the face in a fight was yes­ter­day put on one year's pro­ba­tion and or­dered to do 100 hours of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice. The 16-year-old girl ap­peared be­fore San Fer­nan­do Fourth Court Mag­is­trate Ali­cia Chankar charged with the Jan­u­ary 15, 2010 of­fence. She was found guilty of as­sault oc­ca­sion­ing a wound fol­low­ing a sum­ma­ry tri­al. Pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Rus­sel Ra­moutar called four wit­ness­es to tes­ti­fy.

Chankar told the teenag­er what she did was a "se­ri­ous act" and ad­vised her to use the com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­flect on the se­ri­ous­ness of her ac­tions. The teenag­er was ar­rest­ed by PC Baksh and charged with as­sault­ing her 17-year-old school­mate. She was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Mewahlal Cha­toor. Ac­cord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tion's case, the teen girls were at their Pleas­antville school when they got in­to an ar­gu­ment dur­ing the lunch break. The ar­gu­ment es­ca­lat­ed to a fight dur­ing which time the 16-year-old girl bit the 17-year-old on the right cheek.