Belair man ordered to pay $500 following altercation

A Belair man who pleaded guilty to the offence of malicious wounding was ordered to pay $500 compensation at the Serious Offences Court.

Terry McDowall appeared in Court on Friday, October 6, for the unlawful wounding of a shopkeeper. He was charged with, on October 4, hitting the virtual complainant over his head with a piece of iron.

The police report gives the reason for the altercation as a dispute over the amount of change given back to McDowall after he bought half a pack of cigarettes from the shopkeeper.

McDowall, who pleaded guilty before Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne-Matthias, said he wasn’t buying the pack of cigarettes for himself and the shopkeeper in question had a habit of giving him the wrong change.

McDowall, who had, before his charge, not seen the inside of a courtroom for 34 years, was chastised by the Chief Magistrate, who said that what he had done could result in jail time, all because of “cigarettes and two dollars.”

“That iron you hit him with could have killed him,” Browne-Matthias stated, adding “situations like this where we cannot contain our anger over something seemingly small,” are what cause people to kill others sometimes.

McDowall was ordered to compensate the complainant by the end of this month. Failing this, he will spend three months in prison.

He is also to be bonded for nine months, in default of which he will pay $1,500 or spend nine months in prison.

“I’m tired of young men going down like that,” commented the Chief Magistrate.(KR)