BY ROMINAH FAKA
Court has sentenced a man to 10 months’ imprisonment for cutting his wife’s hair extension and injuring her head.
Allen Sam, 36, received his sentence on March 11 by Principal Magistrate Emily Z Vagibule Pakoa.
In delivering sentence court highlighted the aggravating factors which were the breach of trust as the defendant and the victim are husband and wife, use of weapon – a small pocket knife, defendant being under the influence of alcohol and the incident occurring at night time.
Mitigating factors included early guilty plea saving court’s time and resources, first time offending, cooperating with police and the defendant being the sole provider for his family.
Principal Magistrate Pakoa in delivering sentence told Mr Sam to accept that he must bear the consequences of his actions or decision making because of his arrogance forced towards the victim.
“As people must understand that taking law into your own hands sometimes results in very tough position to either pay fine or prison.”
Court considered a starting point of 16 months imprisonment adding nine months for aggravating factors which equaled to 25 months. Court deducted five months for guilty plea, 10 months for other mitigating factors.
The head sentence for Sam is 10 months, to be backdated from when he was remanded.
Court facts said during the night of December 31, 2024, Sam and the victim went to Cowboys Grill club to celebrate the new year’s eve countdown.
At around 2am, the accused and the victim got separated inside the club. After that, the accused went searching for the complainant, first inside the club and outside in the parking lot, but could not find her.
The accused went outside again and this time he saw his wife standing beside a blue Caldina, which was driven by her ex-boyfriend.
The defendant approached the victim (wife) after seeing her standing by her ex-boyfriend’s car and asked her why she was standing there. She told Sam that she had told her ex-boyfriend to drop her off at home but he could not do so because someone was inside the car.
The defendant and the victim went back into Cowboys Grill and at 3am they returned home.
When they arrived home, Sam questioned the victim about why she was gone for about two hours.
The victim did not reply positively which caused the defendant to get angry and grabbed the victim’s dress, which she tried to escape but he grabbed the victim’s hair extension and used a pocket knife and cut the victim’s hair which resulted in an injury to her head.
When the defendant saw the blood from the victim’s head, he let go of her and she fled to the White River Police Station, where she was assisted and taken to the National Referral Hospital for urgent medical treatment.
She was admitted immediately due to the severity of her head injuries.
Public Prosecution office for acted for the Crown and PSO for defence.
For feedback, contact:[email protected]
