PHILIPSBURG–A 31-year-old woman is facing a prison sentence of eighteen months, six of which are to be suspended, on three years’ probation, for seriously injuring her elderly mother-in-law with a shoe.
The incident took place during a discussion between the suspect and her mother-in-law on October 26, 2017. At one point the discussion got out of hand and a fight broke out between the two women. G.P.L. allegedly kicked her 81-year-old mother-in-law in the face with one of her heels during the fight.
The victim suffered serious damage to one of her eyes and was rushed to St. Maarten Medical Center for treatment. The damage to her eye was so severe that she was flown abroad for medical attention, but according to specialists in the United States, nothing could be done to save the eye.
The victim was present at Wednesday’s Court hearings to file for damages and claimed compensation of medical cost to the tune of US $7,000.
G.P.L was arrested by police at Red Piano in Pelican on October 29 and spent nine days in pre-trial detention.
The Prosecutor considered severe physical injury proven. He also found it proven that the defendant had threatened the victim’s life. As the Prosecutor also found that the suspect had an alcohol problem, he called on the Court to impose a ban on the use of alcoholic beverages and drugs, with Parole Board supervision.
The suspect denied she had committed any crime and said it was an accident. “I had no reason to do something like this to my mother-in-law and the grandmother of my child. Our relationship was very good,” she told the Judge.
However, the victim and her son saw it differently, and said the two women had been in a fight that fatal night. G.P.L. claimed her mother-in-law had attacked her during the argument. She stumbled and grabbed her daughter-in-law’s hair to prevent herself from falling. This move caused the suspect to land on her back. In doing so her feet went up in the air and the shoe on her right foot hit her mother-in-law’s face, the suspect told the Judge.
It was only later that she found out there was blood on the shoe, she claimed. The woman vehemently denied that she had hit her mother-in-law with the shoe’s heel.
She told the Judge she regretted the incident, but the Prosecutor said it seemed as though she had not been very impressed, as she had cleaned her shoe and had gone out to Platinum Room that same night to celebrate her birthday.
Attorney-at-law Remco Stomp pleaded for his client’s full acquittal. His said she had fallen and had not kicked the victim, and said it was not fair to depict his client as an alcoholic.
He further said that the statement of the suspect’s husband, who was heard as a witness, was unreliable. According to the lawyer, the man was a drug addict who was forced to choose between his mother and his wife. The couple has ended their relationship after the incident. “There is rancour, a large inheritance, and fuss about their daughter. This witness is not reliable,” Stomp said.
The Court will give its decision July 25.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/78268-woman-facing-prison-time-for-kicking-out-mother-in-law-s-eye
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