A 42-year-old man was on Tuesday jailed for a total of 16 months after he admitted to a prolonged and ‘terrifying’ assault on a woman in his car.
Grand Court heard that construction worker Miguel Wright, who knew the victim, grabbed her off an East End street and punched and choked her until she blacked out.
When she regained consciousness, he carried out a sustained assault which lasted about an hour as he drove towards George Town. He also took her phone.
The court heard that he later “calmed down”, gave the woman her phone back and told her “if she wanted to call the police, it was OK”.
Wright drove the woman to the George Town Police Station and walked inside with her, where she made a complaint.
He was arrested and remanded in custody.
Justice Cheryll Richards told the defendant that he had inflicted “multiple wounds” on the woman, including injuries to her lips, eyes, head and nose, and that she also suffered swelling to her jaw.
She said the actions of the defendant had subjected the victim to “extreme fear and what must have been a terrifying ordeal”, adding, “She was choked to the point of unconsciousness.”
Richards said, “She was unable to escape because she was detained in a moving vehicle.”
She highlighted that he had inflicted “very serious distress” on the woman, although there was no evidence that she suffered long-term injuries because of the beating.
Richards said that “what was most noteworthy is it was prolonged”.
‘Lost control’
The court heard the incident happened on 4 Aug. last year and Wright was charged with abduction, fear of provocation of violence and assault causing actual bodily harm.
He admitted the offences when interviewed and said he had “lost control of himself”.
He pleaded guilty to the offences in Summary Court last August and appeared at the Grand Court for sentencing by video-link from Northward Prison, where he had been held on remand since his arrest.
Richards said she had considered a social inquiry report on Wright, a Jamaican national, which had assessed him as of “a low risk of reoffending” and added that as he was on a work permit, “his immigration status was now uncertain”.
She added she had allowed a one-third discount on his sentence for his early admission of guilt, which saved his victim the further ordeal of having to give evidence.
Richards said the woman’s injuries had been assessed “at the low level”, but that Wright’s culpability was high because of the prolonged nature of the assault.
She said that the four months in custody Wright had already served should be taken into consideration.
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