March 23, 2004 at 3:39 am
A BRITISH drug smuggler caught trying to leave Jamaica with nearly 16kg of marijuana avoided a jail sentence Monday by claiming to be a hermaphrodite, or a person who has both male and female features.
A perplexed Judge Valerie Stephens gave Jonathon Featherstone of Tottenham, London, a suspended six-month jail sentence and fined the individual $US4800 ($6374) after he – or was it she – admitted to trying to smuggle the drugs out of Jamaica on March 16.
The judge was presented with a conundrum when an attorney for 18-year-old Featherstone, whose passport identifies the bearer as a male, declared that his client was in fact a “legal and functional female who can get pregnant and experiences normal female biological functions”.
The attorney said Featherstone “shared male and female characteristics including genitals” and this would pose a problem for Jamaica’s penal system because it had no arrangements for inmates with such physical characteristics.
In court, Jonathon showed all the appearances of a petite woman with carefully shaped eyebrows and dyed hair.
By: Sauron - 23rd March 2004 at 18:59
I am trying to imagine the thrust of some of the jokes this generate.
Sauron
By: andrewman - 23rd March 2004 at 14:49
Chuck the book at it.
Who cares what it is what it did should make a strong punishment a priority.