Judge: You acted like a wild animal

HIGH COURT Judge Justice Pamela Elder yesterday told a Penal man that she hoped he would learn the saying, “Love your neighbour” over the next six years which he will spend in jail for chopping his neighbour with a cutlass.

Justice Elder told Deochan Ramanth that he she was sending him to jail so that he could be purged of his violent inclination. Ramnath, also called Sagram Ramnath, was found guilty on Thursday by a jury in the San Fernando Third Criminal Assizes for chopping Mary Mollineau five times about her body on October 17, 2000.

Mollineau, a mother of eight, lived in front of Ramanth’s house at Penal Rock Road, and the neighbours had not been on speaking terms for several years. Yesterday, Justice Elder scolded Ramnath for his violent acts toward a woman: “You should know that a woman’s body is to be caressed, not chopped. Violence against women is a dispicable act. “What you did was inhumane. You acted like a wild animal. You should know that wild animals are kept in cages, so too when a man sinks to the level of an animal he has to be caged.”

Ramnath was on trial for the charge of attempted murder, but after two hours of deliberation the jury found him guilty of causing grievous bodily harm. The jury rejected Ramnath’s defence that he was innocent of the crime, and that it was his common-law wife, Fareeda Ramnath Khan, who had chopped Mollineau. The case against Ramnath, was that he armed himself with a gilpin and a swiper, and chopped Mollineau on the head and back. The State’s case was led by attorney Didanath Ramkissoon. Ramnath was defended by Frank Seepersad.