man $400 when he pleaded guilty to common assault in Magistrates' Court.

Troy Harris also admitted beating up a man because he had spoken badly of his new girlfriend.

Prosecutor Sgt. Earl Kirby said on September 24, Harris ran into his ex-girlfriend at the Sparrow's Nest nightclub.

Sgt. Kirby said a fight broke out when the woman refused to dance with Harris and he ended up striking her with a bottle, causing a cut to her head.

But Harris denied this. He said he had approached her to discuss their two-year-old son who was staying with him.

"She had not come to see him for a while but goes out all the time,'' he said. "I asked her when she was coming for the youth. She told me she was not coming for him so that's why I hit her.'' Senior Magistrate the Wor. Will Francis said he would give him the benefit of the doubt that there might have been "understandable provocation''.

After fining Harris, he warned him to learn to control his temper. Mr. Francis also fined Harris $200 for punching and beating a man with a stick a week earlier.

Sgt. Kirby said Harris had chased the man from Swan's Bay Lane to Mount Hill where he beat him, causing bruising and cuts to his body.

There had been a lot of bad blood between the two for some time, Sgt. Kirby said.