Woman paralysed from waist down after domestic altercation

by Hawkins Nanton and Kenara Woods 26.MAR.10

Jolene Charles, a young mother of Edinboro, is paralysed from her waist down after sustaining serious injuries during a domestic attack.{{more}}

The 23-year-old mother of a six-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter was rushed to the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH) last Saturday, after being struck in her head twice with a hammer, stabbed about her body with a screwdriver, and beaten with a cutlass.

One of the stab wounds that she received in her back appears to have damaged her spinal cord, leaving her lifeless from the waist down to her toes.

Recalling the frightful experience, Charles stated the altercation started when she asked her common-law husband of seven years to get a job.

“For the past seven years while me and this guy was dating he wasn’t working or attempting to look for a job to mind his children. I was working for those years but now I stop work. I asked him to go out and look for a job to help maintain us… he kept pushing me and tell me I must go and take man to mind the children and myself,” recalled Charles.

“He take a hammer and start to beat me in my head. He also used a cutlass. Then he take a screwdriver and chook me by my spine. That alone kill my whole limb and dead everything down here,” said Charles.

When asked what could have infuriated her common-law husband that much to attack her so brutally, Charles said: “I told him to leave. He said it is hard for him to leave me for another man to take over. So he prefer to mash me up.”

Charles is trying to remain hopeful that she will walk again but also faces the reality that she may not.

“If I can’t make it back on my feet what am I going to do?” pondered Charles at the MCMH on Monday afternoon when SEARCHLIGHT visited her.

She will now have to travel to Grenada to seek medical assistance.



Carlton Greigg was charged and pleaded guilty to unlawfully and maliciously wounding Charles.

“I have to reach quite Grenada and the amount of money that they charge me I don’t know where I am going to get the money from,” Charles lamented.

Already, Charles is facing medical expenses in the region of EC$12,000. Persons wishing to come to her assistance can make financial donations to her account at the National Commercial Bank in the name of Jolene Charles.

Meanwhile, Carlton Greigg was slapped with a charge of unlawfully and maliciously wounding Charles. He pleaded guilty to wounding Charles and will return to the Serious Offenses Court next Wednesday for sentencing.

Chief Magistrate Sonya Young said that she wasn’t aware of the full extent of the Charles’ injuries, and as a result, entered a not guilty plea on Greigg’s behalf until she was updated on the woman’s injuries.

Moments later, Young discarded her initial decision and went on to accept Greigg’s guilty plea.