A 23-year-old woman who stabbed her fe­male lover over a sex video, has been or­dered to pay an EC$500 (One EC dol­lar=US$0.37 cents) with­in a one month pe­ri­od, in or­der to avoid a three-month prison sen­tence.

But the woman, Aflyn Dou­glas, faces the pos­si­bil­i­ty of fur­ther le­gal ac­tion, af­ter her 26-year-old lover, Rochelle Sta­ple­ton, re­ject­ed the Se­ri­ous Of­fences Court’s of­fer of com­pen­sa­tion, say­ing that she would sue Dou­glas.

“As you heard, the vir­tu­al com­plainant has the priv­i­lege to sue you sep­a­rate­ly for what you have done to her. That is some­thing that you should be pre­pared for in the event that she does,” said Se­nior Mag­is­trate Col­in John.

Dou­glas had plead­ed guilty to a charge that she un­law­ful­ly and ma­li­cious­ly wound­ed Sta­ple­ton on Jan­u­ary 20, at whose home she had been in Kingstown watch­ing the video show­ing two women be­ing in­ti­mate.

The court heard that dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tions, Dou­glas vol­un­teered a state­ment ad­mit­ting to the of­fence. The po­lice said she al­so took own­er­ship of a six inch long knife that was used to stab Sta­ple­ton.

The mag­is­trate told Sta­ple­ton that he was like­ly to award a low­er com­pen­sa­tion amount than the court might if she sues Dou­glas but that al­so would be a longer process.

Sta­ple­ton said she would sue Dou­glas for com­pen­sa­tion.

In hand­ing down his sen­tence, Mag­is­trate John told Dou­glas that he had con­sid­ered the max­i­mum penal­ty, the facts and cir­cum­stances, the sen­tenc­ing guide­lines, her guilty plea and her pre­vi­ous­ly clean record.

He said that he was im­pos­ing a fine of EC$500 and gave her a month to make the pay­ment.

KINGSTOWN, St. Vin­cent, May 17, CMC