WESTERN BUREAU:

A woman who was before the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court for seriously injuring her brother with a broomstick walked free on Wednesday after the court was told that the brother had died suddenly.

When Alicia Humphrey-Howard, a resident of Montego Bay, appeared in court yesterday to answer a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm against her brother Michael Reid, she was free after the court was presented with a medical certificate, indicating her brother had died.

The court was told that Reid, who was allegedly attacked and injured seven months ago (June 17, 2011), had died suddenly in January. However, the medical report did not indicate whether or not he had succumbed to the injuries he sustained in the alleged attack.

injuries

While the court did not seek to tie Reid's death to the injuries he allegedly sustained, Senior Superintendent in charge of St James, Linnette Williams-Martin, noted that in such a scenario, if the injured persons died within a year of an attack and it can be proven that death was as a result of the injuries sustained, the attacker could be charged with murder.

"The medical report would have to say that it was as a result of the injuries received why the person died," the senior policewoman said. "If someone hits a person in their head, that's a serious thing. But it can't be the little ordinary assault, where you just hit someone on the hand."

In Humphrey-Howard's case, she is said to have hit Reid on his side with a broomstick following a dispute in which she accused him of dropping the baby clothes, which she had pinned on a clothesline on to the ground.

Reid had to seek medical treatment following the attack. His sister was subsequently arrested and charged.