A 44-year-old security guard from St. Vincent and the Grenadines has been found guilty of assault causing actual bodily harm against his former girlfriend and former coworker, and has been ordered by the court to pay thousands of dollars in combined fines and compensation to his victim.
Roen Richardson, a resident of Ottley Hall, stood before Senior Magistrate Tammika McKenzie at the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court on June 2 to face judgement for the September 12, 2025 incident that left victim Cleopatra Harris, a Largo Heights resident, with a permanent scar on her hand.
Court testimony laid out the background of the case: Harris and Richardson had worked together at the Kingstown Town Board and maintained a romantic relationship for two and a half years, before the couple split roughly six weeks ahead of the attack.
On the morning of the assault, Harris was working her shift along Bedford Street when Richardson approached her to ask if she would reconcile and restart their relationship. Shortly after his request, a man with a non-Vincentian accent approached Harris for directions to a local park, and hugged her to thank her for her assistance.
Witnessing the brief hug, an enraged Richardson immediately confronted Harris: he shoved her hard in the chest, publicly claimed that he was her romantic partner, and launched into a stream of aggressive, misogynistic insults targeting her character.
When Richardson returned to the worksite before 2 p.m. that same day, he brought a chair that Harris says was made of metal and loaned it to her to sit on, but continued to hurl abusive language at her. Fed up with his harassment, Harris stood up and called Richardson foolish, asserting that as an independent woman, she had full right to make her own choices about her interactions and personal life.
In response to Harris’s rebuke, Richardson picked up the same chair he had loaned her and struck her hard on the hand with the furniture. Richardson disputed the description of the chair during cross-examination, claiming it was made of plastic rather than metal, the only point of contradiction he raised against the victim’s testimony.
After the attack, Harris first reported the incident to her workplace supervisor, who arranged an internal meeting with Richardson. When the matter was not resolved through workplace mediation, Harris filed an official report with the Kingstown Criminal Investigation Unit (CID), which provided her with medical documentation for her injuries and launched a formal investigation. Harris presented investigators with text messages Richardson sent her following the attack, in which he admitted he had not intended to hurt her. The victim told authorities she wanted no further contact with Richardson at all.
Richardson also introduced court documents showing that Harris had reached out to him after the incident, though Harris clarified that the messages only served to repeat her demand that he stop contacting her. The defendant chose not to deliver a full testimony in his own defense, stating simply that he only wished to conclude the court proceedings as quickly as possible.
During the sentencing phase, Harris shared that the two-and-a-half-year relationship with Richardson had been consistently abusive. She told the court that she had chosen to stay in the relationship for far longer than she should have, because she lived in constant fear of his retaliation. While Harris requested that the court not sentence Richardson to prison, she asked for EC$5,000 (roughly $1,850 USD) in compensation, noting that the visible scar from the chair attack still remains on her hand years after the incident.
Prosecutors, led by Police Corporal Samuel Stapleton, informed the court that Richardson had a prior criminal conviction from 2016 on a charge of damaging personal cellular property. The prosecution did not push for a custodial prison sentence for the 2025 assault.
In her final ruling, Senior Magistrate McKenzie ordered Richardson to pay a total of EC$750 (around $278 USD) in compensation to Harris: EC$450 of that sum is due immediately, with the remaining balance required by June 26. Richardson was also issued an additional fine of EC$250, with EC$150 due by June 26 and the rest to be paid by July 15. If Richardson fails to meet the payment deadlines for either the compensation or the fine, he will serve a five-month prison sentence for each unpaid amount.