Butcher charged for brutal attack on Trelawny woman

WESTERN BUREAU:

Anthony Ricardo Bailey, the Trelawny butcher who was being sought by the police after he allegedly launched a brutal knife attack on 23-year-old Stephina Ralston, who was left barely hanging on to life, is now in the custody of the police, facing a charge of attempted murder.

According to Superintendent Carlos Russell, commanding officer for the Trelawny Police Division, Bailey, who is popularly known in his Warsop, Trelawny, community as ‘Israel’, surrendered to the police after being on the run for more than a week.

In an interview with The Gleaner yesterday, Russell said Bailey, who is 34 years old, will appear in the Trelawny Parish Court in Ulster Spring on May 3 to answer to the charge against him.

Reports are that on April 15, Bailey allegedly attacked Ralston, his ex-girlfriend, and used a sharp knife to inflict multiple wounds all over her body before he fled the scene, believing the wounded woman was dead.

NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE

In a Gleaner story on April 22, Ralston described her near-death experience as the culmination of many months of brutal beatings at the hands of Bailey, who regularly assaulted her during their relationship which lasted some 16 months.

“I am living in a free, democratic country and I am living like a slave! It’s not right,” said Ralston, whose physical wounds are now healing but who remains mentally scarred by her near-death experience.

Now that her ex-lover is in police custody, the badly traumatised Ralston who, remains haunted by memories of the butchers’ knife slicing into her body, does not relish the idea of confronting him in court. She is, however, committed to ensuring that justice is served.

Prior to Bailey’s arrest, Ralston was quite fearful that he would return to attack her, as on previous occasions, he searched for her until he found her.

“I am expecting him to come back again,” she said, prior to Bailey’s arrest. “Everywhere I go this man finds me so I cannot be a citizen in Jamaica.

After the attack, the Bureau of Gender Affairs in the Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport made contact with Ralston with a view of creating a support structure around her.

However, given the protocols surrounding providing protection for women who are victims of domestic violence, the details of the assistance to Ralston were not revealed.