A Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate has hand­ed down a sen­tence of 21 days hard labour to a 23-year-old Mar­aval man, charged with as­sault of his for­mer girl­friend.

The ac­cused, Christo­pher Burke plead­ed guilty to the charge of as­sault oc­ca­sion­ing ac­tu­al bod­i­ly harm when he ap­peared be­fore Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate In­dar Ja­groo, on Wednes­day 13th May 2020.

The charge arose out of an in­ci­dent which oc­curred on Tues­day 28th April 2020, in which the ac­cused was re­port­ed to have as­sault­ed his ex-girl­friend dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion at her home.

The vic­tim sub­se­quent­ly made a re­port to of­fi­cers at the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion fol­low­ing which, of­fi­cers of the Gen­der Based Vi­o­lence Unit (GB­VU) in­ter­vened.

An in­ves­ti­ga­tion was un­der­tak­en, spear­head­ed by Head of the GB­VU, W/ASP, Claire Guy-Al­leyne, and W/In­sp. Lystra Bridglal. The GB­VU probe un­earthed that the vic­tim was dealt a blow to the cen­tre of her face, caus­ing a frac­ture of her nose bridge.

BURKE was sub­se­quent­ly ar­rest­ed on Mon­day 11th May 2020.

The GB­VU is en­cour­ag­ing any­one who is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing Gen­der Based Vi­o­lence, to make a re­port to the near­est po­lice sta­tion or via the TTPS Mo­bile App, to en­sure that they re­ceive the nec­es­sary help.