Tonight, bus driver Conroy Roches is at the Belize Central Prison after being sentenced to almost 4 years for grievous harm. He pleaded guilty before Justice Marilyn Williams of brutally assaulting his estranged common-law wife in 2015.
On the night of April 24, 2015, 35-year-old Sherima Graham was at her home in Lords Bank Village, when Roches showed up at her door. He pretended to have a good reason to be there, and shortly afterward, the two got into a verbal confrontation. Things escalated quickly, and while Graham was in the process of calling the police for help to remove Roches from her property, he allegedly struck her to the head and knocked her unconscious. When she woke up, she was hospitalized, and she later learned that Roches brutalized her to the point where her face was severely disfigured.
Roches stood trial before Justice Williams in March of this year, but he saved the court time by pleading guilty to the offense. Today, Justice Williams passed a sentence on him and ruled that he is to serve 5 years in jail. But, she deducted 1 year from the sentence, for his guilty plea, and 28 days for the time he spent on remand.
After the hearing, Graham agreed to grant us an interview about what was basically a case of domestic violence in which, she chose to press charges against him. Here's what she had to say about the years of recovery she had to endure after that beat:
Sherima Graham - Abuse Victim "I came to the sentencing today with the knowledge that no matter what time he got, I would not have been satisfied if I expected him to get what I think he deserved because I thought that the maximum for grievous harm was 7 years and 7 years can no way pay for what I am going through right now, what my children are going through and what we've been through over the last 5 and a half years. So I came here just expecting closure. Mr. Roaches and I, we have been together for 6 years prior, we ended our relationship on January 7th of that year because it was that year that I found him inside my house with another woman and he attacked me, he choked me that day, in self defense I grabbed a knife and I stabbed him in his leg. We ended it that day, we try to keep it civil for the sake of the children, especially my son, he had a skin condition and he couldn't stress, so we try to keep it civil. Like our usual routine, I took the children to the park the night, I had someone drop us home, I put the children to bed and he comes at the door and I went to open the door, he said I brought something for CJ, my son. I opened the door and he began making a fuss, I know you were at the park with somebody and I looked at him and said, it doesn't matter who I want to have now, you had your chance and before I take you back, I prefer to take a dog. I said if you don't leave my house, I am going to call the police because I need you to get from my house. If I knew you were coming to argue, I wouldn't have opened the door. He didn't want to leave, so I went into my room to get my phone and as soon as I grabbed my phone, when I turn around, something hit me across my face. When I came to, I was in the hospital, I couldn't turn my neck, I had a missing tooth, 2 teeth were chipped, I had 20 stitches in one of my eyes. For the first couple days I couldn't see anything because my entire face was bandaged up. I know that whenever my family took me to the bathroom, they made sure they shielded the mirrors and I had to know why, so one day someone came to visit me and luckily that did not get the memo. So I took that opportunity and I asked the person take me to the bathroom please, person took me to the bathroom but all I went to the bathroom was to look and see why they didn't want me to look in the mirror and when I looked in that mirror, I think that's when I had my meltdown because all the while it was surreal. I'm telling people this is what happened, I have been talking to them for me, it wasn't real, I was hoping I would wake up from that dream because it was so unlike him. We would never have a fight before January 7th, we never had a fight, was always when I was angry, I say you know, I'll take a walk and come back when I can calm down. So for me, this was so sad and totally unreal, this did not happen."
After her near-fatal assault, Graham spent two weeks in a local hospital and was then flown to the United States for further treatment.
From the doctor's findings, Graham suffered a shattered jaw bone, two broken teeth, and the loss of another tooth. The effects of the physical damages still persist to this day. Among other things, she struggles with severe migraine headaches, pain in her face during weather changes.
