Taxi driver in court over incident with policeman

With his wife’s assistance, and a blue cushion in hand, taxi operator Carl Leslie Hinds took a painstaking walk into the docks of a criminal court less than 24 hours after being seen in a viral social media video lying facedown and arms outstretched after an encounter with a uniformed policeman.

Before Magistrate Douglas Frederick this afternoon the 47-year-old, of Lot 49 Lodge Crescent, Lodge Hill, St Michael, pleaded not guilty to resisting police constable Kervin Greene and using the abusive language, “You don’t know the r***hole what you now f***ing well do. You is a stinking dog.” He also denied using the insulting language, “Constable Greene you is a jackass” and failing to leave the premises of the Barbados Port Incorporated after he was directed to do so by Greene, a person authorised by the owner.

The offences occurred yesterday, March 9, the very day videos of Hinds and constable Greene began trending on social media.

Station Sergeant Crishna Graham had no objections to bail but asked that the Hinds stays away from the Bridgetown Port where constable Greene is attached and report to a police station.

But Hinds countered the bail condition saying he “picked up” passengers from the location even though he was not an authorised port taxi operator.

“People I have coming on the cruise ship I have to pick up sometimes. I am a taxi operator and I ply trade down there. I am not authorised but if I have to pick up people. I can send through correspondence to pick up my passengers, which on Saturday I have to pick up passengers. So I don’t know how that one is going to work out. That is how I make my living.”

Prosecutor Graham said Hinds’ profession had been considered in her submissions but was of the opinion that he could use an intermediary. “He is not an authorised port operator. He solicits passengers, so there is no necessity per se for him to be there,” she said.

The accused said while he understood what the officer was saying, visitors “book with me . . . via the Internet . . . and they come in through the port”. He then requested that police return his mobile phone which he said was his “main connection to my family and my business.

“I ask them for my phone and they would not even return it. . . my phone is my main connection to my work,” he told the court.

He then explained that in order to get his clients from the port he first had to write to the chief of security.

On that submission Magistrate Frederick ruled in his favour but made it clear that he had to follow that process and only venture to the port when authorised to do so. Hinds was also ordered to stay away from constable Greene.

The submission to report to a police station was set aside by the magistrate on the grounds that Hinds was involved in a contentious matter with the police and it would be best if he stayed away from the police station at this time.

After his surety was accepted, Hinds exited the court. As he passed through the doors, cane in hand, he pushed his head through a slit of the cushion on which he had been sitting, asked his wife for help to navigate the steps and painstakingly walked out of the precincts of the District ‘A’ Magistrates’ Court. He returns to court on July 7.