Barbados Today

Two siblings, who were captured on video fighting with police at school sports yesterday, have been ordered to pay fines.

Twenty-seven-year-old Trinia Norella Clarke pleaded guilty before Magistrate Elwood Watts to assaulting and obstructing Sergeant Jacqueline Bourne in the execution on her duties.

She also admitted to assaulting the officer, occasioning her actual bodily harm, and to destroying a $1,000 pair of glasses belonging to the officer, while her 21-year-old brother Rommel Rishon Clarke pleaded guilty to refusing to leave the premises of the Christ Church Girl’s Foundation School when ordered to do so by the police.

According Station Sergeant Rudolph Burnett, Rommel was among a group of men smoking what appeared to be marijuana while attending the school sports.

The principal of the school approached Sergeant Bourne and other officers for assistance in asking the group to leave. As the police approached, a number of the men “moved off”, but Rommel refused to leave, saying he had come to see his niece compete.

“That is the first time I see her run and I was not leaving until I saw her run,” Rommel told Magistrate Watts.

Today, the court also heard how his sister had intervened when she saw her brother being arrested for trespassing. She was asked to desist in obstructing the police in executing their duty but failed to comply.

Sergeant Bourne then held on to Trinia, who started to fight the officer, striking her in the ear, arm and eye. One of the officer’s fingers was also sprained in the melee and her glasses destroyed.

Asked by the magistrate, why should he not send her up to prison for three months for committing such an offence against an officer, the first time offender said: “I don’t want to go to jail. It wasn’t my intention to get in the way of the police . . . . The police just get aggressive. It wasn’t my intention to fight with the police officer. I don’t want to go to jail. I never get charged before this,” the minibus conductress said as she shrugged her shoulders and began to cry.

However, the magistrate replied: “You are going to feel the pinch for your [actions]. You are a star girl . . . on the front of the [news] paper . . . . Don’t cry in here, cry outside and count yourself lucky,” Watts said as he convicted, reprimanded and discharged her for the simple assault charge and fined her $500, which much be paid in two months or she will have to spend seven days in prison, for obstructing the officer.

For damaging the officer’s spectacles, Trinia must pay $1,000 in 14 days or spend 30 days behind bars. For the assault occasioning the officer actual bodily harm she has to pay $2,000 in compensation in six weeks time or spend the same length of time in jail.

In the meantime, her brother has two weeks to pay a $200 fine or spend two weeks in prison.