‘I didn’t mean to harm Julene’, murder accused tells court

Haniyfa White told the No. 5 Supreme Court on Tuesday that she never intended to harm anyone when she armed herself with a knife on the night Julene Bryan was fatally wounded in 2007.

“I feel sorry that Julene died. My intent was not to harm Julene at all,” White said from the witness stand as she mounted her defence.

White, of Sion Hill, St James, is on trial for the murder of Bryan on May 14, 2007.

Giving testimony for over an hour and a half, the murder accused said she moved to Six Men’s, St Peter in 2004, and she and Bryan became friends through their children, but by late March 2007, their relationship had soured.

She said Bryan began harassing her, and they cursed at each other when they saw each other. White stated that Jenine Harvey and another woman joined with Bryan in this harassment, threatening to beat her up and “troubling me all the time”.

White recounted that there was one instance where the women rushed at her after she had taken her children to the beach, but they retreated as her mother had intervened. She reported the matter to the police.

She said that a day before the fatal encounter, Bryan had run at her with a knife while she was walking home with her children.

“A guy named Bassy was behind me—he was a fisherman—and asked ‘wuh gine on here?’ and when he did that she stopped and I grabbed my two children and ran home. They were screaming and crying,” she recalled.

She called the police, and they came to her home. White called lawmen again later that day because of further threats by Bryan and Harvey, but she said she was unsure whether the authorities spoke to the women.

On the day of the incident, White visited attorney and family friend Robert Clarke to get him to write to the two women to leave her alone. She asked him to give her a ride home because she was afraid of being harassed further, but he was unable to and dropped her off in the City and gave her a bottle of wine.

When White returned home, she passed the two women laughing under trees and went into Stanley’s shop to get a top up, resting her bag with the wine and other items on the counter. Harvey and Bryan then entered the shop.

“I said to them, ‘I will walk away from the two of you again,’ and Julene started to slap me in my face and cuff me up. I told her to stop, and she didn’t stop, and I pushed her, and Jenine started to beat me in my head with the wine bottle that I had. They were both beating me up. I was screaming and putting my hands up to try to shield some of the blows,” a tearful White recalled.

She said that the shopkeeper came out and said he did not want any fighting in his shop, and she got away and ran home. White said blood was spouting from her head and running into her face, and she felt dizzy and fell twice on her way home. When she reached her residence, she realised her daughter was not home.

“I panicked because an incident just occurred, and I was beaten and my daughter was outside, and I was afraid,” she said. “I do not know what they would do with my daughter because the night before I had my children, and they were bold enough to come and attack me in front of my children…. I took up a knife and I went outside. My aim was not to hurt anybody. I thought that if I had the knife, they would not interfere with me.”

White said that while looking for her daughter, she heard people screaming and when she looked back, she saw Bryan coming out of her house with a piece of iron. White said she turned around and faced her “because I did not want Julene to beat me up in my head or anywhere on my body.”

“She told me she would burst my ***, and I told her ‘Come then’…. She started to beat me with the iron and I grab for the iron and we both fell on the ground and the knife drop and we started to fight. She was pulling my hair and everything…two of my plaits were pulled out. It was chaotic and we started to fight for the knife as well. At one point, Julene had the knife and it juck me in my hand, and I was trying to get the knife from Julene, and the handle broke off. We were fighting for a long time, and I was trying to get Julene from off of me—she was on top of me—and I felt blood come on me, and she held up off of me, and I panicked and ran home,” she recounted.

White recalled that the knife was not hidden but in her hand.

“I didn’t have it raised, it was just in my hand. My intention was not to use the knife. I thought that when they see the knife, she wouldn’t attack me, and they won’t beat me up. That’s all,” the murder accused testified.

She said that at the time of the incident, she was about five feet and 130 pounds, while Bryan was taller and weighed around 200 pounds.

At the station, she alleged police pressured her into giving a statement, hitting the desk and shouting at her. White said she had not yet spoken to her attorney, Clarke.

She said she had bruising and swelling on her legs from being hit with the iron, but did not point this out to the doctor because she was in shock.

During the cross-examination by Acting Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Krystal Delaney, White denied that she threw an object at Bryan’s house to get her to come outside.

White refuted that she deliberately stabbed the deceased in her neck or that she went home for the knife to kill her.

The trial continues Thursday with the defence expected to call witnesses. White is represented by attorney Safiya Moore. Madam Justice Pamela Beckles is presiding.