Captain gets 18 months jail for assaulting wife

Magistrate Melissa Robertson-Ogle sentenced a barge captain to 18 months imprisonment for assaulting his wife; while he will be tried on charges that he assaulted his step-daughter and set his wife’s house afire after he pleaded not guilty to those offences.

The charges were read to William Johnson, 45, at Sans Souci village, Wakenaam on July 15 and 16.

In a bid to explain the allegations that he took his reputed wife Somawattie Persaud to a cemetery and beat her, Johnson said that he had been provoked. Johnson said that after he hit her they went to sleep but the following morning she and her children attacked him. The man alleged that Persaud pelted a kerosene oil stove at him which set the house alight.

When the magistrate asked him whether the relationship was now over Johnson said, “my worship I don’t know if I could find another woman like she, she used to treat me good.”
Johnson was ordered to appear for trial at the Wakenaam Magistrate’s Court on August 20.