Mavado to return to court next year

MONTEGO BAY, St James — Dancehall artiste David Brooks, who goes by the stage name Mavado, is set to face trial in the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate’s Court over two days — February 6-7 next year — on charges of malicious destruction of property and assault.

The dates were set when Brooks appeared in court in the second city yesterday, his second appearance since giving himself up to the police in July.

The court dates are the same for Brooks’s promoter, 33-year-old Gregory Lindo, who is charged with perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

Meanwhile, defence attorney Martyn Thomas, who is appearing along with Christian Tavares Finson on Brooks’s behalf, requested that the court ask the complainant and his friends to desist from calling his offices and “making certain requests”.

The attorney told the court that the men have been calling his office asking for the artiste’s number.

Thomas asked the court to warn the men through the police, and also said his client had no interest in anything they had to say and will face the court at his trial.

The allegations against Brooks are that on July 22 at about 7:00 pm, the complainant and his son were in a Toyota Camry along the Belmont main road in St James when they came upon a long line of traffic and pulled off the road.

It is aleged that a man came to the driver’s door of the complainant’s car, opened it then slammed it before reopening the door and proceeding to assault the man. The court heard that the man slapped the complainant in his face and kicked him in the groin.

Brooks is then said to have driven up in a black Range Rover and told the complainant to move out of the way, as he was not going to drive his vehicle over the stones, but the complainant refused.

The court heard that Movado then used the wheel of his vehicle to squeeze the man between his car door and the car, causing swelling to his foot and a cut to his shoulder.

The court also heard that the damage to the car was about $25,000.

Thomas told the court that it was not just his client who was involved in the incident but other men as well.

Up to the last appearance in court, the other men who were reported with the artiste at the time of the incident and who are alleged to have assaulted a teenaged boy with a machete, were yet to be apprehended and charged.

JamaicaObserver