Three weeks into her High Court trial, Letitica Bowen, who is accused of stabbing a woman to death in her school compound two years ago, said yesterday that she was attacked and acted in self-defence.
From the dock an emotional Bowen, who choked up a few times, said she was accosted on the day in question by the now deceased Jacklyn Levius and two other females just after leaving a building in the school compound. She said Levius chucked her, grabbed her school shirt and vice (choked) her neck while one of the others pulled her hair.
“While they were beating me, a knife fell down and I picked it up and tried to lash my way out with it to get away from them. I had no knife on me, I don’t walk with knife to school,” the young woman said.
Bowen said she was hollering for help and crying and people came and pulled her away from the three women. While two teachers were taking her to the office, she said, Levius cuffed her in the eye.
The accused told the jury that she was sorry for the injuries that one of the women, Wanda Small, sustained and that she was also sorry about Levius’s death. According to her, none of it was intended. Bowen said she was in a helpless situation and no one went to her assistance.
Bowen’s statement from the dock came yesterday after Justice Roxanne George ruled against no-case submissions made by her lawyer, Bernard DeSantos SC, and called upon her to lead a defence. DeSantos later called two witnesses for the defence — a former Richard Ishmael student and a teacher at the school.
Both witnesses recalled seeing Bowen being attacked by three women in the school compound but neither saw whether she had a weapon in her possession. The teacher, Charles Gillis, told the jury under cross-examination that he witnessed a scuffle break out between Bowen and the women, which lasted for about 15 minutes. Gillis said he did not physically intervene or go over during that period because as a male teacher he preferred not to get in between women.
Bowen, who is now 19 years old, is accused on the November 30, 2005 killing of Jacklyn Levius. She was indicted on a charge of manslaughter. The prosecution, lead by State Counsel, Ganesh Hira, closed its case last week and the defence wrapped up its case yesterday.
