Surety to forfeit some bail money

Not only did a woman who absconded from court lose her freedom for the next few weeks but her surety now has one month to pay half of the bail amount or she too will find herself behind bars.

“Ms Marshall has been missing from the court for a long time. It took a new charge sheet to get her back here,” Station Sergeant Cameron Gibbons told the No. 2 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court today about the accused Kesha Melissa Fiona Marshall.

The 33-year-old, of Dunscombe, St Thomas had been before Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant on two offences allegedly committed on April 25, 2017 – refusing to leave the premises of Savings Plus Supermarket when told to do so by a person in authority and assaulting Selvin Lovell causing him bodily harm. She had been on $3,000 bail since her first appearance after denying the charges.

The accused however, appeared in the No. 1 District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court on November 22 on a theft charge to which she entered a not guilty plea. She was again granted $3,000 bail but it was revealed that warrants had been issued for her for failing to attend court on the pending matters.

“When I came to court last Friday and they said I missed court . . . but I was in prison until last year May,” Marshall told the magistrate. However, a check of the court’s records showed that she had not been before court since July 2018.

“You were given the date of July 20, 2018. You were not in prison then,” Cuffy-Sargeant said even as the accused’s surety said that she would like to say something.

The surety explained that she had only come to court today because she had been informed that Marshall had missed a March date last year. But the magistrate pointed out that it was now November 25 and “You are coming here . . . for a date in March 2018? She is your responsibility as a surety. She has been MIA (missing in action) since July 20, 2018. The bail sum is $3,000 you have to pay half of that.”

The magistrate then gave the surety a month to pay the court $1,500 or spend three months in prison.

The accused Marshall meantime was remanded to Dodds to reappear before Cuffy-Sargeant on December 20.