'Judge Greaves should be disbarred'

A mother-of-two has criticized a judge for ‘ridiculing’ and ‘revictimising’ her in his sentencing remarks.

Chrissie Kempe told the Bermuda Sun Judge Carlisle Greaves should be disbarred for comments made about her during the sentencing of her ex-husband, Irving Butterfield, this week.

Butterfield was given a suspended sentence after he admitted stabbing co-worker and friend, Damian Forbes, for kissing Ms Kempe in her home, over a year after Butterfield and Ms Kempe had separated. 

In his sentencing remarks Judge Greaves rejected prosecutors’ claims that Butterfield was solely to blame for the attack.

He said that all parties had ‘acted badly’.

Justice Greaves added: “She wasn’t rubbing salt in his wound, she soaked him in a brine, in this man’s house where he still had privileges, where he kept his children. That’s salt in the wound twice.

“She brings a man in the house. The relationship wasn’t finished. After sending him out like a bird, fully aware and she brings a man in the house.

“It isn’t just his friend, it’s his work mate.

“He had a right to peep. What was he supposed to do when he saw them? Wait until the gentleman entered into the valley of love? What was he supposed to do? Walk away with his head down like a mouse?”

But Ms Kempe maintained that at the time of the incident on February 3, this year, the couple had been separated for over a year and the house where the attack took place was hers.

Undermined

She told the Sun that the judge’s comments undermined her belief in the judicial system.

Ms Kempe, who was in Supreme Court for the sentencing, said: “The thing that appalls me most is that I feel the judge’s comments depict me as the one who should be in the dock.

“I feel like he has ridiculed me by these comments.

“I feared for my life during this incident and yet I feel I am being portrayed as someone who brought it upon myself.

“The judge has described the house where the attack took place as our house.

“It was not my ex-husband’s house. 

“The only reason he was allowed in it was because he was of no fixed abode and so he could maintain a relationship with our children.

Farce

“The judge’s remarks make me think that the whole judicial system is a farce.

“I do not care what the sentence is; I have no interest in seeing my ex-husband serve prison time or anything like that.

“But for this judge to say that I was to blame for this is absolutely outrageous.

Disbarred

“I think he should be disbarred.”

Butterfield, 39, of Hamilton parish admitted unlawfully wounding and threatening his workmate.

He was given a sentence of 12 months imprisonment suspended for two years, while a concurrent sentence of three months imprisonment suspended for six months was also imposed for using threatening words.

The Sun tried to contact Justice Greaves for a response to this criticism.

But a Court spokesperson said: “For a number of reasons, it is not possible for individual judges to respond to out of court criticism, by persons involved in cases before them”

Did not condone

Judge Greaves stressed in his sentencing remarks that he in no way condoned the defendant’s actions.

And he pointed out that the Crown had accepted Butterfield’s plea to a lesser charge of unlawful wounding, instead of wounding with intent, because of the presence of provocation.