Sheriff Night Club owner Rajpattie Bacchus is denying reports that a family of four was robbed and assaulted outside the nightspot early Monday morning but the victims are standing by their story.
Bacchus says the victims were never in the club, saying they got as far as the door but left without entering. She said they need to recheck their story and publicly admit their error in naming Sheriff Night Club in their story.
This revelation comes a day after the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) issued a statement calling for a suspension of the nightclub’s licence until the perpetrators are arrested.
Yesterday the victims held firm to their account of that night and maintained they were inside the Sheriff and were attacked and assaulted outside the club.
“We know the Sheriff Night Club and that night we were there for some time. They took our money, let us in and they knew when we left. We were robbed right outside that place not two doors down, or another club, it was right there,” one of the females told Stabroek News.
The GHRA is aware of Bacchus’s denials and has since broadened the call for a suspension of all the club licences in the area until the determination of the criminal matter. The body which had planned a vigil outside the Sheriff Night Club today is going ahead as planned, but will not now stand in front a particular nightspot given the new information.
Speaking with this newspaper yesterday, a member of the family said they first went to the Tennessee Night Club, which is just across the road but left after hearing how much it cost to go in. They then went over to the Sheriff and paid $200 each at the door before entering. While in there they purchased drinks and even ran into a friend. They said after the incident occurred inside the club, they got up and left immediately and soon after the large group of men who were inside the club followed them outside and attacked them.
“Those guys were all in that club and they all [came] outside when we left so I don’t know how the nightclub could say we were not in there and this thing did not happen at their place,” one of the females said.
Bacchus contacted Stabroek News yesterday to say the name of her business was being stained. She said the earlier newspaper reports were not brought to her attention, but the call by the GHRA was.
“I can see no reason why the GHRA would call for such a thing. They do not know the story and every story has two sides. Those people were never in my place because I asked my security who were there and they said they (the victims) were not there and that the incident happened next door to the club,” Bacchus related.
Based on the information she received from the security at the club that night, she said, the family had a problem with some people next door to the Sheriff. According to her, the security at the Sheriff did not see the need to intervene because it was not on the Sheriff’s premises. Bacchus could not say whether the security knew that two of the women in the group were assaulted.
She said Sheriff Street usually had a lot of people, particularly men, hanging out on the road at all hours of the night. Bacchus related that she has written to the police about the “characters” hanging around but no action has been taken.
Though she was not around at the time, Bacchus is going by the story her security people told her and is insisting that the family was not attacked outside her night spot.
The GHRA issued a statement on the incident on Wednesday, which called for a suspension of the nightclub’s licence until the perpetrators are apprehended. While condemning the attack on the family, the body said, “Nightclub staff must have been alerted to potential trouble by the initial altercation involving spilt drink which set in motion all that followed. Similarly, the exodus of the gang after the family left could not have gone unnoticed. Allowing the perpetrators to return to the nightclub was inexcusable.”
Further, GHRA said, the Guyana Police Force needs to explain how an incident of such magnitude occurred without police intervention in the most concentrated night-life area in the country, particularly after months of security planning for Cricket World Cup. The body pointed out that there must be effective action from the force to apprehend the perpetrators of the incident.
According to the victims, they had just left the Sheriff Street nightspot and had boarded a taxi when the gang descended on them and in full view of the public and assaulted and robbed them before walking calmly away. Minutes before, the lone male in the group had accidentally spilled a drink on a group of men sitting nearby and the men demanded he replace it with extra drinks. He refused to buy extra drinks.
When the family left the nightclub, the men followed them outside and pulled them out of a taxi. They pulled guns, broke a bottle, stabbed the male in the group and assaulted two of the women. (Iana Seales)
