(Barbados Nation) SHOCKED. That was how Magistrate Kristie Cuffy-Sargeant described her feelings after hearing how a male visitor tucked a $50 bill into the bosom of a female Barbadian and then slapped her on the bottom.
James Patrick O’Rourke, a 44-year-old managing director who was staying at Sandals Royal, in Dover, Christ Church, but who is from Willenhall, West Midlands, England, had just pleaded guilty to assaulting Charmaine Alleyne and resisting Constable Shaquille McClean, all on May 19.
“We were just joking,” O’Rourke said in his defence. But the complainant said she felt embarrassed by the incident. “I am shocked. Honestly I am really shocked,” the magistrate declared.
“I am going to warn you and any others – we may be a small island, but we don’t have small minds. You disrespect a lady and you think it is a joke?
“If this is how you behave in your country, that is fine. But it is not how we behave in ours,” she declared, as she remanded O’Rourke to HMP Dodds until today when he will return for sentencing.
Prosecutor Constable Kenmore Phillips said the visitor went to the ATM at the Sol Service Station in Top Rock, Christ Church, where the woman was sitting in the deli. The ATM was near to her and the two struck up a conversation.
The visitor then took a $50 bill and placed it in the cleavage of the complainant. She took it out and tried to give it back to O’Rourke but he refused to take it.
He then went to the counter, purchased a pack of cigarettes and on leaving the service station, slapped Alleyne on her behind.
She reported the incident to police who had just entered the gas station and it was while the constable was trying to arrest the visitor that he resisted.
O’Rourke arrived on May 12, had requested ten days’ stay but had been granted three months as a visitor.
