“I love her … I must have taken 30 licks in my head …I am not going back,” husband told the court.
A Ladyville couple who have had a stormy, violent relationship was ordered to keep the peace for one year when the woman appeared before Senior Magistrate Sharon Frazer to be arraigned on charges of wounding and use of threatening words against her husband, who professed his love for her and asked the court to drop the two charges.
When Magistrate Frazer asked Natalia Wade, 44, a security guard of 100 Milpa Site, Ladyville, what was her relationship with the virtual complainant, a man who was wearing a fez in the courtroom rose and identified himself as Keith Staine. He told the court Wade is his wife and he was the one who filed the police report against her.
When the 39-year-old Staine removed the fez from his head, a number of injuries became visible.
Frazer told Wade, “I am seeing scars on him and he went to the police to make a report against you.”
Wade replied, “We have gone through domestic violence four times and I drop the charges.”
“I think he would be a fool to come here and tell me that what I am seeing you did not cause. In the face of the court he would be lying,” Frazer said, adding, “there is no happiness ina fu unno paradise.”
The Senior Magistrate told the couple, “Four reports to police, unno can’t deh together. We have to come to the realization that something is wrong, Miss.”
Frazer told the couple that there was obviously violence in their home, and things were not going well. “You are here for an offense that could land you in the Central Prison for 7 years,” she told Wade.
Staine told the Magistrate, “We still have a pending case.”
“I married her because I love her,” Staine explained, “I know now that I am not going to be together with her. My family was distraught because of what happened.”
He continued, explaining what sounded like a nightmarish relationship in which violence was always present in their home.
“I love her and I care about her, but I must have taken 30 licks in my head. I am not going back,” Staine told the court.
Staine described for the court how he got sprayed with pepper spray twice, how he was handcuffed and tied up and beaten by his wife.
He concluded, however, saying, “I don’t have any feeling that I would want her to go to jail.”
When it was her turn to speak, Wade narrated her share of distress in the troubled relationship. She told the court that Staine locked her up in the house and sealed off the windows with zinc so that she could not come out.
“He has sex with me without my permission,” she explained, “he promised that he would not touch my skin again.”
She said Staine called her all kinds of names, including “bitch” and “whore.”
Frazer told Wade, “When you went to family court, you were the victim. But today, you are the offender; you are charged.”
At this point, Wade broke down and began to cry.
“You should never have been here with tears running down your face,” Frazer told Wade, “that is not love, and you are right here telling me that he forced himself on you.”
Frazer told Wade, “While I am going to dispose of this matter today, you don’t need this. This is ‘murderation’ waiting to happen.”
After dismissing the charges against Wade, the Senior Magistrate bound both of them to keep the peace for one year.
“If the peace is breached, come with $1,000 in your hand to pay the court, or be prepared to go to jail for 6 months,” she told both of them.
After signing the court documents, Wade told Amandala that she and Staine have been together for one year, and were married at the Muslim Masjhid, “because we are Muslims.”
“I try to reach out to the Imam to help us,” Wade told us.
“As women, we are not supposed to go through things like this. Everybody don’t know what happens behind closed doors. I’ve gone through a lot of things, but I don’t say anything to anybody,” she said.
Wade added that her husband is a much calmer person when he takes his medication. She said that according to Staine’s mother, he has been diagnosed as schizophrenic since he was 19 years old.