Two brothers have been convicted of unlawfully wounding a work colleague following a machete attack at a Cayman Brac bar.
Dwayne Frazer earlier admitted the offence, and his brother Roain Frazer was found guilty of the charge by Grand Court Judge Cheryll Richards on Tuesday, 13 Jan.
The court had heard that Dwayne Frazer was with the victim, and others, outside La Esperanza bar in Watering Place on 15 Feb. last year when the two got in a row, after their boss asked the victim why he had not been at work that day. The man had replied that the rest of the work crew had told him none of them would be working that day as they were taking their partners out for the day after Valentine’s Day.
Dwayne Frazer claimed the man was lying and the two had a heated argument, in which, the court heard from witnesses, the victim was aggressive and verbally abusive. Dwayne Frazer left the bar in his car and returned about half an hour later with his brother.
The court heard that the brothers attacked the victim, with Dwayne Frazer punching him and Roain Frazer chopping him on the head and shoulders with a machete he had brought from the car.
The men’s boss, Rudolph Dixon, a former deputy police commissioner who employed them at his construction company, in his testimony to the court in the trial described the violence in the fight as the “most vicious” he’d seen in his career.
The victim suffered injuries to his eye, head and shoulder.
Roain Frazer in his evidence had claimed Dwayne had not mentioned the fight between him and the victim as they drove to the bar, and said he had remained in the vehicle, playing games on his phone in the back seat while his brother went back to the bar.
He had told the court that he grabbed the machete from the trunk of the car after seeing the victim threaten his brother with a beer bottle. He said, back in Jamaica, he had witnessed a man being killed by a broken bottle at a party and so had feared for his brother’s safety.
He insisted he had acted in defence of himself and his brother, and that he hadn’t chopped or slashed the victim with the weapon but had slapped him about three times with the flat side of it.
The prosecution had pointed out that Roain Frazer had lied to police about where he got the machete, stating that he’d found it on the ground. Frazer had claimed he did not tell police the truth about the machete because he had panicked.
Richards, in her verdict judgment, said she did not find Roain Frazer to be a credible witness.
She noted that Dixon had stated that the victim had been carrying a bottle or a can of beer during the initial argument, but that he could not recall seeing him with a bottle at the time the assault was carried out. Dixon had described Dwayne Frazer punching and kicking the victim when he fell to his knees, bleeding from the head.
The judge noted that Dixon had said, “This was not a three-way fight, with [the victim] punching. He did not throw any punches.” She said the victim was “set on holding the defendant around the waist to keep the machete off him … he was holding on, trying to protect himself.”
Richards also questioned the credibility of Roain Frazer claiming that, while he was sitting inside the car, some distance away, he had someone at the bar shout “You can’t do that,” and saw the victim holding his brother in a headlock, with a bottle in his hand. She said CCTV footage showed the car door opening before the two men got close together, “much less holding [Dwayne Frazer] in a headlock”.
“The account of Mr. Dixon, which I accept, is that [the victim] was being chopped and hit and was doing no more than holding on for dear life. It was not a three-way fight at that point, even if the defendant genuinely believed that he or his brother was attacked, under attack or about to be attacked, the force used was unreasonable,” the judge said.
Roain Frazer had also been charged with wounding with intent in relation to the incident, but Richards found him not guilty of that charge.
Both men, whose bails were extended, were ordered to return to court for sentencing on 27 Feb.
Related Videos
Both of them need to be deported.