Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A mag­is­trate has grant­ed a pro­tec­tion or­der against a mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er and life coach, block­ing him from abus­ing a for­mer client with whom he start­ed a per­son­al re­la­tion­ship. 

Mag­is­trate Cher­ril Anne An­toine grant­ed the or­der un­der the Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence Act as the ap­pli­ca­tion from the vic­tim, a spe­cial­ist doc­tor, came up for hear­ing at the Ari­ma Mag­is­trates’ Court on Mon­day. 

The re­la­tion­ship be­tween the self-help coach and the doc­tor be­gan af­ter she sought his pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices in De­cem­ber 2018. The doc­tor claimed that af­ter she end­ed the re­la­tion­ship in Ju­ly 2023, her for­mer part­ner launched a cam­paign of abuse against her.

The doc­tor ob­tained an in­ter­im pro­tec­tion or­der in Ju­ly 2024 but sought a per­ma­nent one af­ter the abuse al­leged­ly con­tin­ued. 

The man ap­peared in court when the ap­pli­ca­tion came up for hear­ing this week.  

He ad­mit­ted to sev­er­al of the acts al­leged by the doc­tor but still blamed her for his ac­tions. 

How­ev­er, he gave an un­der­tak­ing that he would not car­ry out any fur­ther acts of abuse or do­mes­tic vi­o­lence against her. 

The mag­is­trate grant­ed the or­der based on the un­der­tak­ing. In the event that the or­der is breached, the coach can be fined or im­pris­oned. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the doc­tor, who was rep­re­sent­ed by Ravi Ra­j­coomar, Jerome Ra­j­coomar and Kan­dace Bharath-Na­hous, is in the process of fil­ing a civ­il law­suit against the man seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for the abuse and the dam­age to her ve­hi­cle. 

The man was rep­re­sent­ed by Lar­ry Williams and Adam Roberts.