A nine-member mixed jury comprising of six women and three men has found Nathan Laville not guilty of Grevious Bodily Harm (GBH) and wounding of St. Lucian Nicholas Antoine on September 9, 2019.
Antoine who arrived in Dominica in 2017 after Hurricane Maria as a tradesman was renting an apartment owned by Nathan Laville and his wife Hannah and subsequently ended in a relationship with Hannah.
On the evening of September 9, 2019, Nathan who resided in the top part of the apartment building said he heard a noise and realized that “an intruder” was in the apartment and armed with a “crowbar” he called his sons and asked the individual to come out. He then used the crowbar to force the door open and then engaged in a fight with Antoine who he said was aggressive. Antoine was struck with the crowbar on his foot and sustained a broken leg and other major injuries. Nathan was represented by attorney at law Wayne Norde.
In his testimony, Antoine told the court that he was staying with Hannah ( the wife of Nathan) they were in a relationship, and on the day in question, he had asked Hannah to use one of the apartments for the night.
“On entering the apartment, someone pulled the door, but I managed to lock it…I could hear Nathan’s voice and he said Jade, Jathan (his two sons) we are going to kill him tonight,” he said. Hannah he said was screaming and telling Nathan that she had given me permission to stay in the apartment.
According to him, the door was then being forced open and Hannah then instructed him to open the door which he did, and at that time he was faced head-on with Nathan who had a crowbar swinging at him. “They overpowered me (Jade and Nathan) bang my head on the floor and lifted me in the air, I was struck several times with the crowbar in blood by Jade, and Nathan was dragged out of the house.
Under cross-examination, he denied that he was the attacker and agreed that he on several occasions drove the vehicle which belonged to Nathan and Hannah. In her testimony, Hannah said that she was the one who gave Nicholas Antoine permission to stay at the apartment for the night but when she saw Nathan take the crowbar, she began to “scream.” Asked by the jury why didn’t she call the police, she stated that she never expected the matter to have escalated.
“I was screaming for help while Jade held me preventing me from going into the apartment, I bit him on his foot and ran to help Nicholas and said no one is hitting him again, I then went to get the police,” she said. Under cross-examination from defense lawyer Norde who suggested to her that she came to court to lie for her “boyfriend,” she said that “I came to speak the truth.”
In her address to the jury, acting Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Sherma Dalrymple said that while Nathan’s case is that of “self-defense” and that it was “an intruder” he the house, that is not true.
“He knew his wife was in a relationship with Nicholas, he created the situation, ripped open the door with his crowbar and started to swing, and then put him out in the yard. The prosecution submits that, the witness Nicholas is truthful and Nathan did not act in self-defense and is guilty as charged,” she said.
But defense lawyer Wayne Norde told the jury that “the many inconsistencies in the case of the prosecution has paralyzed them given them a big sore and gangrene.”
“The trouble came to meet Nathan at his home…a man’s home is his castle, where you have peace and safety, two wrongs can’t make a right, Nathan has practiced good restraint given the situation and knowing what was happening, send him home with a not guilty verdict,” Norde stated.
He ended by telling them that the “prosecution had failed to satisfy them beyond reasonable doubt and that Nathan had nothing to prove since the burden rests on the protection to prove its case at all times and they have failed that test miserably.”
