Robert Bravo received the shock of his life in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court on Tuesday, when he learnt that a phone he had damaged and would be asked to replace, cost $57,000.

The complainant stunned the court when she produced a print-out detailing the name and make of her phone, pictures of the phone, its features and the cost.

Bravo, appeared before Senior Resident Magistrate Glen Brown to answer to charges of assaulting a female and malicious destruction of property.

Not the first time

The complainant told the court that Bravo was the father of her first child. She said this was not the first time he damaged a phone belonging to her, and added that this phone had been given to her by the father of one of her other children. She told the court that life without her phone was becoming unbearable. "Is like part a mi life gone, mi can't make any calls. A three day now mi nuh chat pan phone."

She further told the court that Bravo had hit her in the face during the incident when the phone was damaged.

Bravo pleaded guilty to the allegations, telling the court that he committed the acts out of jealousy. He said he had been deported from the United States and had been accepted by the complainant, but the relationship had become "oppressive".

When he was told of the cost of the complainant's phone and that he would have to replace it, he told the court that his job only paid him $5,000 a week. He is to be sentenced on November 27.