Trial Begins as Virtual Complainant Testifies in Unlawful Wounding Case Involving Shurland Orlando Davis

The virtual complainant in an unlawful wounding matter told a nine-member jury that Shurland Orlando Davis chopped her with a cutlass after she refused to have sex with him.

Davis, 53, is charged with wounding Althea Burke with intent to maim, disfigure or disable her or to cause serious bodily harm.

Giving evidence as the trial began on Tuesday afternoon in Supreme Court 3A, Burke recounted that Davis, who had been a childhood friend, began asking her to have sex with him via WhatsApp after she moved back into the Brereton Village, St Philip neighbourhood and offered to pay her for the act. She said he would also ask whenever they saw each other in the neighbourhood.

Burke testified that on April 16, 2020, after Davis sent her another message requesting sex, she told him to keep his money as she was not a prostitute and not interested.

“I would tell him he was being disrespectful, and I told him to stop,” she told the court.

Asked by Davis if she would be coming outside that evening, she responded in the affirmative but did not give him a time.

She said that later that night, as she made her way to her aunt’s house nearby, Davis approached her with $400 in his hand, placed it in her pants pocket and again asked for sex while grabbing at her. She recalled pushing him away and running back inside the house, where she told her uncle what had happened. She then called a police officer that she knew to discuss the situation.

The complainant stated that a few days later, on April 21, she was sitting on her aunt’s patio with two other people, unbraiding her hair, when Davis appeared at the entrance and spoke of her disrespecting him before pulling out a cutlass from behind his back.

“I saw him look at my feet, my chest and my neck, and I asked him if he was going to chop me, and in my head, I was telling myself, ‘either you sit here and you die, or you lose something’. So I took my left hand and put it up,” she recalled.

Burke said after being struck with the cutlass, she ran inside the house, wrapped her hand in a sheet and was taken to the hospital.

Asked by Principal State Counsel Rudolph Burnett what injuries she sustained, Burke said tendons and nerves in her hand were damaged, requiring several surgeries and pins to keep her thumb attached.

“I cannot hold or grip anything in my hand,” she told the court.

Questioned about what had happened with the $400 Davis placed in her pocket, Burke said she had thrown the money back at Davis on the same night before running back home.

Burnett is prosecuting the case along with State Counsel Anastacia McMeo-Boyce while Davis is self-represented. Justice Anthony Blackman is presiding.

The trial is expected to continue on Wednesday.