WESTERN BUREAU:

The Hanover man who bit his wife on the hand in full view of the judge as they were exiting the Montego Bay Family Court was sentenced to nine months' imprisonment at hard labour on Tuesday.

The accused man, Vaughn Shaw, of Success district, had previously pleaded guilty to unlawful wounding in the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's (RM) Court. He had bit his wife, Nadisha Campbell-Shaw, in August. He had entered his plea when he appeared before the court on September 11.

The court was told that on August 21, the couple was leaving a night court sitting at the Family Court, where they had an ongoing case. Without any apparent provocation, Shaw grabbed Campbell-Shaw and bit her on her index finger, causing a wound that bled.

In the RM court on Tuesday, when asked by judge Wong-Small if she had anything to say before sentence was passed on her husband, Campbell-Shaw begged the judge to protect her child from the defendant. Shaw is the father of the child.

"I am asking you to do whatever you can to protect my son," pleaded a tearful Campbell-Shaw. "Every day he (Shaw) wants to fight me."

attack her physically

However, Shaw staunchly denied that he was abusive, arguing that Campbell-Shaw was not telling the truth about him wanting to attack her physically.

"Contrary to what she is saying, I don't always see her, and I have not been trying to fight her," Shaw told the magistrate.

However, RM Wong-Small had harsh words for Shaw even as she handed down his sentence.

"What you did, I find that it was reprehensible," the RM said. "You are before the court with this woman over matters of maintenance, (but) there is no excuse for what you did, none at all."

"You may have been feeling frustrated, but the thing to have done was to explain yourself, not to attack this lady," the RM added.