SASCHA WIL­SON

A hus­band who seemed to have no re­morse for beat­ing and chop­ping his wife has been sent to jail for four months.

Stan­ley Ram­raj, a PH dri­ver, plead­ed guilty in the San Fer­nan­do Mag­is­trates’ Court to un­law­ful­ly as­sault­ing his wife oc­ca­sion­ing a wound. The cou­ple has three chil­dren and has been mar­ried for 29 years, but Ram­raj’s wife told Fourth Court mag­is­trate Ke­ri­anne By­er that this was not the first time her hus­band had abused her.

“This is the fi­nal straw. He re­quest­ed a di­vorce and he can have it,” she said.

Re­lat­ing the in­ci­dent, court pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Cha­nar­dath Jhilmit said around 5.30 pm on Wednes­day the woman was at her home in Gas­par­il­lo when she was con­front­ed by her hus­band and an ar­gu­ment broke out.

Ram­raj dealt her sev­er­al blows to her face and then chopped her on her left fore­arm with a cut­lass. She told the mag­is­trate she did not know what caus­es her hus­band to be­come vi­o­lent.

She said they would be hav­ing a nor­mal con­ver­sa­tion and sud­den­ly he would erupt and be­come vi­o­lent.

“He would say we are trip­ping him off,” said the wife. The cou­ple’s last two chil­dren, ages 16 and 12, live with them.

The wife sug­gest­ed that her hus­band re­ceive psy­cho­log­i­cal help and al­so re­quest­ed a re­strain­ing or­der.

The mag­is­trate ad­vised her to vis­it the Clerk of the Peace to ap­ply for the or­der.

Ram­raj, who did not have an at­tor­ney, said the ar­gu­ment stemmed from the hos­tile man­ner she spoke to him over the phone.

He al­so com­plained that an­oth­er is­sue was that when he tries to cor­rect his chil­dren his wife would go against him.

The mag­is­trate said, “It sounds like if things don’t go the way you want you re­act in a vi­o­lent way.”

He replied, “She back­ing up the chil­dren.” Ram­raj said he had no prob­lem mov­ing out of the mat­ri­mo­ni­al home.

In pass­ing the sen­tence, the mag­is­trate said she took in­to con­sid­er­a­tion his guilty plea and that it was his first of­fence.

How­ev­er, she said, “I don’t feel as though you showed any re­morse.” The mag­is­trate or­dered that the cut­lass be re­turned to the wife. Speak­ing to re­porters af­ter­wards, the wife, who had a ban­dage on her left fore­arm near her wrist, said she was not pleased that her hus­band was jailed. She did not think that jail was the so­lu­tion to their prob­lems.