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NASSAU, Bahamas, CMC -The Court of Appeal has upheld a seven-year jail sentence imposed on a woman who blinded and disfigured a woman she had suspected of having an affair with her husband.
Magistrate Simone Brown had imposed the maximum sentence on Pandora McKenzie, 68, who had been charged with causing dangerous harm.
In dismissing the appeal, Justices Bernard Turner, Gregory Smith and Deborah Fraser, noted that the attack was premeditated.
In the ruling read out by Justice Turner, they said that the evidence indicates that the appellant lured the woman to the location under the false pretense of wanting to have a conversation with her, “while instead waiting with the corrosive substance concealed in a cup.”
The Appeal Court said that McKenzie threw the substance directly in the woman’s face and then armed herself with a cutlass.
“In these circumstances, the learned magistrate was entitled to justify the offense as among ‘the most serious incidents’ of its kind, as she would have taken judicial notice of the extent of [the victim’s] injuries.”
During the trial, the court heard that on November 8, 2020, McKenzie’s husband invited the victim to his home in Grand Bahama with the intention of convincing his wife that they were not romantically involved.
McKenzie had agreed to meet her alleged romantic rival , and the husband and the woman denied that they were having an affair.
However, as they spoke, McKenzie threw the contents of a metal cup in the woman’s face and then stood over her with a cutlass. The husband was able to disarm his wife, preventing further injury to the woman.
McKenzie appealed the sentence on the ground that it was unduly severe, with her attorney, Bjorn Ferguson, arguing that the magistrate erred when she described the case as the “worst of the worst”.
By contrast, the prosecutor Ashely Carroll said the sentence fit the crime.
