Touting row ends in smashed windscreen

Acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson on Tuesday remanded a man who admitted causing malicious damage to a minibus after a disagreement and ordered him to compensate the owner at his next hearing.

Thirty-year-old Seon Oliver of 24 Norton Street, Wortmanville, pleaded guilty to the charge of malicious damage to property when he on Tuesday appeared in the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court.  According to the facts of the case on January 11 Oliver unlawfully damaged a bus windscreen and a dashboard, to the value of $48,000, the property of Linden Isaacs.

Oliver told the court that on the said day he had been escorting a passenger to a bus when a tout blocked the bus door to prevent him from embarking.

He said he pushed the tout out of the way and Isaacs voiced his displeasure about the situation. “We had a lil scuffle and he went back to he bus but he come back with a cutlass and chop me in mey back,” he said, adding that he then went home and did not make a police report.  Oliver then told the court that later the same day he saw Isaacs and he pelted him with a chair which broke the windscreen and damaged the dashboard.

However, the prosecution said after the scuffle at the bus park Oliver saw Isaacs in a drugstore and had attempted to chop him with a cutlass.

The prosecution said Isaacs picked up a chair to block the blow and a scuffle soon ensued. During the fray the chair landed on the windscreen and broke it.

Additionally, Oliver told the court that he and Isaacs had opted to end the case and negotiate to repair the damages. Isaacs then told the court that he has to pay the mechanic $22,000 extra for workmanship.

Oliver was given up to yesterday to come up with the money.