They smoke, they drink and they have had fights with each other. The mother even accused the father of dropping their baby on her head because he was too drunk to hold the child properly.
Yet both claim that they were good parents to their six-month-old baby.
The two, Damian Curtis Cox, 35, of Browne’s Gap, Sargeants Village, Christ Church, and Shanice Reece, of Sargeants Village, were in the District “A” Magistrates’ Court yesterday for the conclusion of the case against Cox.
Cox had admitted assaulting Reece, occasioning her actual bodily harm on April 2.
When Reece appeared yesterday, Cox repeated what he had said in her absence.
“She don’t do nothing for the child,” he said, as Reece stood across from him on the witness stand.
He explained that his daughter lived with him and he was her main care giver.
“From the time the child born, she start drinking heavy and smoking heavy,” he told the court, as he outlined how the woman barged into his mother’s house “cussing and carrying on”.
He said she “got hit by me throwing something at her”.
“Yes, I does drink and smoke but I don’t drink and smoke like he do,” Reece, a mother of two other children, immediately countered.
Reece detailed how Cox spent his days on the block smoking and drinking with other men.
One day he was so drunk he dropped their daughter on her head, she said.
“He would stand up and make you believe I is the only body that is drink and smoke,” she told the court, adding she smoked and drank before she met Cox.
“I don’t drink every day. It isn’t an everyday thing. And you can’t stop nobody from drinking,” Reece added.
However, despite their excesses, Reece told the court both she and Cox were good parents. But still she removed her daughter from Cox’s care on Thursday.
“But the way you describe things – the smoking, the drinking, the violence, dropping the baby – you don’t sound like good parents,” Magistrate Douglas Frederick noted.
He said the only thing the two had in common was that they wanted the best for the child.
The magistrate warned the two not to have anything to do with each other and placed Cox on a bond for six months. If he breaches it he will pay $500 forthwith or spend one month in prison.
In addition Magistrate Frederick ordered him to pay $300 compensation in three weeks or spend three months in prison. (HLE)