Accused in Charlestown acid attack remanded

Mortimer Hyman, who allegedly burned another man with acid and severely disfigured him, was charged yesterday after seven years on the run.

Hyman, 45, was remanded on a charge of inflicting grievous bodily harm by Magistrate Hazel Octive-Hamilton at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court.

He was not required to enter a plea to the indictable charge, which is based on the allegation that he, on May 8, 2005, at Sussex Street, Charlestown, Georgetown, unlawfully and maliciously inflicted grievous bodily harm on Ron Robin.

Acid attack victim Ron Robin outside the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

No details of what transpired on the day in question were related to the court.

Attorney Terreen Haynes-Anthony, who represented Hyman, asked for reasonable bail but her request was denied after objections by the prosecution.

Haynes-Anthony said that Hyman, of Lot 90 ‘A’ Field Sophia, was a fisherman and father of four and that he was without any previous convictions.

But police prosecutor Sergeant Alexis David-Hosannah asked that Hyman be denied bail, telling the court that since the alleged commission of the offence, he had absconded and evaded the police until his recent apprehension.

David-Hosannah, who noted that Hyman had previous similar matters pending before the courts, dubbed him a flight risk.

After listening to the applications by both sides, the presiding magistrate informed the attorney that her client would be remanded to prison. The matter will be called again on July 24.

In the acid attack, Robin sustained burns to his face, arms and abdomen.

In an interview with Stabroek News from his hospital bed in 2005, he had alleged that the accused threw the acid on him and chopped his [Robin’s] reputed wife because of a confrontation he and the man had the day before.

He said that on the day of the incident, his reputed wife had been sweeping around their shop, but he later took over the chore. According to him, “the other man [the now accused-person] was in his place playing music.”

Bending over and sweeping, Robin said he did not notice when the man came up and threw the acid. He screamed, he said, and when his wife ran out of the shop to see what had happened, the man fired a chop with a knife, cutting the woman’s thumb after she raised her hand.

The woman received stitches for the injury she sustained, while Robin was admitted a patient to the burn care unit of a city hospital until his later discharge.

Hyman was charged last week in connection with the alleged attack on Robin’s wife and was also remanded to prison.