Jealous woman ransacks boyfriend’s house, files false burglary report

by Katherine Renton

It was a 28-year-old woman that ransacked her boyfriend’s house when she thought he was cheating, and it was also she who made a false burglary report to attempt to hide this; but it was her boyfriend who paid the penalty for the crime.

“You still love her. What is love?” Senior Magistrate Rickie Burnett mused after Leif Joslyn came to the court to show the extent of his love for defendant Akitta Haywood, who is still his girlfriend.

Joslyn had indicated that he would pay the fine for Haywood. He had come with a wad of cash in his pocket, and was ready with the $1000 fine immediately as it was handed down by the magistrate.

His girlfriend had been charged with giving false information to a person employed in the public service on November 21, 2018.

On that date, she reported to the police that she had “observed” a burglary at the home of Joslyn, her boyfriend. The police responded to the report, and she showed them where “someone” had broken the window of the house, and where the shoes from her boyfriend’s collection were missing. Parts of the house were also ransacked.

However, Constable Holder noticed that the broken glass and the stone were on the outside of the house.

Leif Joslyn who paid the penalty for his jealous girlfriend’s crime

The defendant went to the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) where she gave them a statement. However, when the constable pointed out his observation to her, Haywood admitted that she was the one who broke the window and that she had staged a burglary. She said she took the shoes and disposed of them in a garbage bin for somebody else to collect.

She told the policeman that she was upset because her boyfriend’s best friend had told her that her boyfriend was cheating on her.

Prosecutor Corlene Samuel explained that the shoes are precious to the boyfriend, and he collects them, so she took them to hurt him because “that is what he loved.”

Samuel commented that there are instances when the public criticize the police for not responding immediately.

“But here we are, she reported a matter, the police went there right away, and she lied. Wasted the police time when they could have done something else,” the prosecutor stated.

“She planned a crime. And then she reported it, that somebody else broke in. And if the police wasn’t observant somebody else might have gotten the blame,” she continued.

“An innocent person” the magistrate stated.

“As a woman we get hurt…men get hurt too…but sometimes you just have to let it go,” Samuel told the defendant. The prosecutor also told the court that she had read something that alleged the boyfriend got another girl pregnant.

“So just let it go if that is the case,” she told Haywood.

Haywood’s boyfriend turned up to court to meet his crying girlfriend.

He told the magistrate “I think she’s learnt her lesson” because since the incident she’s been remorseful.

However, Burnett told him that Haywood should consider herself lucky for many reasons, including that the court is not functioning now as it was before (alluding to the fact that there are sentencing guidelines that must be used).

The court also learnt through questioning that she is a mother of two children that do not belong to her current boyfriend. They are still minors.

“Yeah but when you were planning this crime you were not thinking about your kids were you? But you’re facing jail now and all of a sudden kids become important,” the magistrate told her.

“When we are sentencing a man, we hardly consider the children. They are also providing for the children. But when we are sentencing a woman, we pay more attention to the children than the men, that should not happen. But it happens,” the magistrate also commented.

However, he said that the woman has a criminal mind, and he noted that the boyfriend was not her first boyfriend, as she said so herself, and so she is experienced and should know that not all men are faithful.

However, Haywood was also a first time offender of the law.

In the end, the magistrate allowed Joslyn to pay $1000.

Haywood, a resident of Murray’s Village, was also charged with burglary, but the boyfriend did not proceed with this charge against her.