Battered woman jailed for six years for stabbing former lover

Dominican born Christine “Lynn” Dublin, was sentenced last week to six years incarceration for stabbing her former lover over 19 times with an ice pick and pen knife.

The 46-year-old woman was previously in a 13-year relationship with Danny Harry, who she is charged with wounding with intent on May 7, 2016.

Dublin and her current partner Marcus Arthur were charged together, but Arthur was acquitted by the jury, after evidence was given by Dublin during the trial that she was the one who did the stabbing.

Although Dublin was clear on this point, the victim, Harry, chose to use his victim impact assessment to contemplate why Dublin would “accept the blame” to “protect” Arthur. He claims that the majority of his wounds were sustained at the hands of Arthur.

Crown counsel Rose-Ann Richardson steered the prosecutions case, which revealed that on the fateful night three years ago, all parties attended a function at Huffles nightclub. It was Arthur’s birthday.

The security present at the nightclub received a couple complaints that night, firstly from Harry, who said he was being harassed by the two, and then from Arthur, who said that he was being harassed by Harry. The parties also clashed verbally, but it wasn’t until Harry was leaving the event that he said he was ambushed. Dublin was carrying with her an ice pick and a pen knife. The victim’s version is that Dublin held him down, and Arthur stabbed him with the ice pick and pen knife, but this was strongly denied by Dublin during the trial.

Nonetheless, what is certain is that Harry sustained multiple wounds to his face, back and torso, and was found lying in the road.

Justice Brian Cottle in rehashing the evidence last Thursday before he sentenced Dublin, noted that “According to one responding officer, this prisoner said that she wished that the complainant had died as he would not stop harassing her.”

“It is fortunate that this did not turn out to be a case of the worst,” he stated.

Dublin was a fountain of tears when she addressed the judge last week. She said that for the month she had spent in prison already since her conviction and, “I’ve learned a lot in that space of time, and I don’t think it’s somewhere I want to be.” She said that she was sorry four times in different sentences, all within her short address, and pleaded that the incident was not something that she would normally do.

“I am really sorry for what I’ve done. I promise I will not ever get myself in this kind of trouble,” she said, while saying that her children are at home waiting for her.

Cottle in balancing the features of the case found no mitigating characteristics of the offence itself, and therefore that the aggravating features outweighed them. Some of what the Justice found to be aggravating was that Dublin brought these weapons with her to a nightclub, and that the incident took place in the full view of those persons leaving the establishment.

However, Dublin’s personal circumstances were also examined. The offender is a mother of four girls between the ages of 12 and 19. Three of these girls are fathered by Harry.

She did not go to secondary school, because, even though she passed the primary exit exam her family did not have the means to send her to school. She herself was the victim of horrific abuse at the age of 12.
Her 13 year relationship was “far from smooth” Cottle stated, while revising the results of a social inquiry report. “During the course of that relationship she sustained much physical and emotional abuse at the hands of,” Harry, which led to Dublin taking up a drinking habit, Cottle informed. It is said that she was trying to move on with her life with her relationship with Arthur.

Dublin, with no previous convictions, is thought of as a caring mother by her community, despite challenging circumstances.

“It was also a common view expressed that she may have lost control on the night of the incident, and that her time as a battered spouse would have played no small part in this,” the Justice noted.

Dublin was considered a good candidate for rehabilitation. Starting at a term of 10 years imprisonment, Cottle adjusted upwards and downwards depending on the aforementioned circumstances until arriving at a sentence of six years in prison.

This period will be spent from the date that Dublin was convicted.