The Police prosecutor in the trial of alleged handbag-snatcher George Brown suggested on Friday that the defendant's wife had come to court to lie to save her husband.

But Lovette B. Brown told Magistrates' Court on Friday that she was telling the truth about her husband's whereabouts on the night of May 30 last year, when a man attempted to snatch a female visitor's handbag.

George Brown, 31, of Stovell Bay Road, Pembroke, denies attempting to steal a handbag containing a purse, credit cards, and a $100 in cash from a visiting English woman on May 30 last year.

In December, the court heard from English couple James and Peggy Richardson of Cheshire.

Richardson, 56, told the court that he and his wife were walking along Woodbourne Avenue in Pembroke at 11 p.m. when a man on a motorbike rode up, asked his wife the time, and attempted to snatch her bag and speed off. He had just pulled the culprit from his bike when taxi driver Bernard Woods arrived on the scene and called 911 on his radio. Brown was later arrested.

Last month George Brown, who is represented by Mr. Larry Scott, told the court that he was out drinking and watching a basketball game the night the incident took place. He misplaced the keys to his bike, which was parked on Front Street, and decided to take a taxi home.

Brown also said that the next morning when he went to get his bike it was had been stolen.

He told the court that the scratches on his leg, which Police suspected came from scuffling with the English victim's husband while trying to get away, actually came from a fall off a ladder while working.

Lovette Brown told the court that she arrived home from work at about 8 p.m.

and at 9 p.m. her husband came home in a taxi.

"My husband came home and I gave him $10 to pay the taxi fare,'' she said.

"I did not question him about where his bike was because I know it is always breaking down. My husband told me that he had had a few to drink, but he was not drunk.'' When asked by prosecutor Sgt. Kenrick James if her husband had a steady job, Brown replied: "I know that my husband was doing some work for Mr. Gifford Stanton.'' Sgt. James also asked Brown if she went to work on the morning of May 31, and she said she did.

However, Sgt. James suggested to Brown that she did not go to work the morning following the alleged incident because she was emotionally upset about what happened. But Brown said that that was not so.

The trial continues today before Senior Magistrate the Wor. Will Francis.