Post office sleeper remanded

As the security guard stationed at the General Post Office made the rounds on Sunday night he came across 39-year-old Jason Jamal Newton and another man putting down items, making beds to sleep.

The guard – David Bynoe – told the two they were trespassing and to leave the area near the private post boxes. They left. However, when Bynoe came around hours later making sure that all was intact at the Cheapside facility, he came across Newton, of no fixed place of abode, again in the same area – this time he was fast asleep.

Bynoe nudge him in a bid to wake him up but Newton apparently woke up fighting and slapped the guard across the face. He then ran and picked up a rock when Bynoe drew is baton but he never threw the rock.

“I did not slap nobody, I did not slap him. I just ran out, grab my shoes and . . . down the stairs,” Newton told Magistrate Douglas Frederick after the prosecutor Sergeant St Clair Phillip outlined the facts.

That declaration caused the magistrate to void the guilty plea for the assault charge and record a not guilty plea instead.

However, Newton said he did trespass.

“I does go there every night . . . I does go for food,” said Newton who told the magistrate that he lived at Clermont, Lodge Hill.

At the end of the day’s sitting however he was unable to get someone to come and verify his address. He was remanded to return to the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on April 8.