After taking statements on assault allegations levelled against Minister within the Office of the Prime Minis-ter Kwame McCoy, the Guyana Police Force (GPF) yesterday confirmed that it is seeking legal advice on the way forward.
Police Commander of Region 4(a) Khali Pareshram yesterday told Stabroek News that the police file in relation to the matter had been sent for legal advice.
Asked whether the file included statements from the two persons identified as witnesses by the alleged victim, APNU+AFC Mem-ber of Parliament (MP) Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, Pareshram did not respond.
Sarabo-Halley has accused McCoy of hitting her on the left temple with his phone on March 3rd during a break in that day’s parliamentary sitting.
During a press conference yesterday she called for him to be charged and removed as a member of the Assembly.
“I am hoping that the Guyana Police Force does the right thing and charges are laid against McCoy,” she said before adding that to allow McCoy to remain in the House is to say to society that we’re not really about protecting our women and protecting the rights of our women.
Recounting the events leading up to the alleged attack, she that she had left the sitting to make her way to the washroom and saw government MPs in a verbal battle with Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield, who was at parliament for the consideration of the budget estimates for the Guyana Elections Commission.
“They were really trying to get at him and he eventually left and we were still there… Kwame approach-ed me with a phone in his hand, apparently videotaping or something. I’m not sure what he was doing. He was in my face less than a feet away from me, so I raised my hand to block him from recording me and he took his hand with the phone and just chucked me to my left temple,” Sarabo-Halley said.
McCoy has denied the accusation. “At no time did I touch Ms. Halley with my phone or any part of my body,” he said in a statement.
Yesterday a visibly-distraught Sarabo-Halley described the incident as an eye opener.
The former Minister of Public Service, who had to stop at points to compose herself as she fought back tears, said that she did not realise the extent to which she felt violated until she struggled to enter the Assembly the next day. “Persons have in the past shared their experience with violence but now that it has happened to me I can begin to understand it,” she said before adding that she was forced to seek the assistance of one of her colleagues to get from her car into the building.
Her anxiety is compounded, she said, by assertions that she is lying.
“I am now made to suffer twice because of it,” she said as her voice shook.
She said she is distressed not only by the ease with which she was attack-ed without any provocation but by the ease with which especially the female parliamentarians on the government side took pleasure in making snide remarks at her in the National Assembly the day after.
She spoke of not being believed and being framed a liar and an attention seeker with some ulterior motive. “I find no pleasure in it so I am not sure why persons would want to insinuate that,” she added.
Her husband, Cleon Halley, who joined her for the press conference, said that he believes his wife and is sickened by the response her ordeal has received.
“Looking at the way in which grown men with wives and children are responding is sickening…I have to know that my wife as a Member of Parliament is working in a space with someone who physically assaulted her…and that persons in offices as high as the Prime Minister are defending him,” Halley lamented, before adding that attempts to trivialise the matter and or cast his wife as the aggressor are also disturbing.
He added that for him Speaker Manzoor Nadir did not do enough to ensure his wife’s safety. “If I have to go to the Parliament and walk with my wife along the corridors to make sure she is safe, I will do that. If the Speaker will not ensure her safety, then I will do it,” he said.
Halley drew attention to the various legal troubles previously faced by McCoy, while noting that the Minister is “not Saint Paul”
“We are dealing with someone who has (had several) charges of assault… most of which started with some verbal confrontation,” he reminded.
McCoy has previously been found guilty of assaulting political personality Mark Benschop and then opposition activist Clifton Stewart.
Speaking about the physical impact of the alleged attack, Sarabo-Halley said that she has been feeling a pain on her left temple.
“It has gone down to the side of my neck, I did a medical examination and they give the final diagnosis that I just had head trauma and like strain by my muscle in my neck and the requisite medication was prescribed,” she said.
The prosecution of the case could prove problematic as there is no video evidence of the encounter.
There was no camera pointed in the direction where the incident happened and so all the video showed is PPP/C MPs walking up and down in a particular space and one of the APNU+AFC MPs sitting in a chair.
“That was around the corner from where the incident happened so there is no video footage that shows the actual incident in any way shape or form and so camera evidence there is none. When I saw [the video] I recognised that it gives no clear indication of anything that transpired with what even Mr. Mc Coy said happened with him and Mr. Lowenfield, there is no evidence that shows that nor does it show what happened between Mr. Mc Coy and myself,” Sarabo-Halley said.
However, according to the MP she recognised two persons on another corridor in clear sight of what happened and they indicated that they witnessed what transpired.
