$1,800 Raised For Sanitation Worker’s Fine
$1,800 in donations has been collected so far in an effort to pay the $2,000 fine for a sanitation worker who was convicted of slapping a teenage girl after she insulted him.
Last week The Royal Gazette reported that a 43-year-old Corporation of Hamilton trash truck worker who slapped a 16-year-old girl was fined $2,000 in Magistrates Court. Michael Pond told the Court, “We were working and she walked across the back of the trash truck with her friends and said the ‘trash truck stinks and you stink.”
Mr Pond said he warned her to watch her mouth, and she continued to insult him, and at one point insulted his mother saying: “Your momma’s p**** stinks like the trash truck’.” He was arrested shortly after the incident, convicted and fined $2,000, then lost his job with the Corporation of Hamilton.
Erica Rance-Cariah and Janice Battersbee of the group ‘The Bermudians’ started a movement to raise money for his fine saying, “We are looking to get 200 people to contribute 10 dollars to repay Mr Pond for this fine that we all feel was unjust.”
We spoke with Ms Rance-Cariah and Ms Battersbee yesterday afternoon while they were collecting money for Mr Pond’s fine.
Ms Battersbee said many people had told her that a good summer job for the girl would be to work on the back of a trash truck, while Ms Rance-Cariah said that people from all walks of life had donated money. She confirmed by the end of the afternoon, they had collected $1,800 in donations.
Message here: If a woman mouths off to a fella enough feel free to belt her one. These girls will help pay your fine.
He should have smacked her when no one was look’n.
One more point. Not that I condone his behaviour, but isn’t this just another example where the little guy gets crucified? Easy to pick on him right? If he was sitting on the throne I’m sure Bermuda’s laws would be too “antiquated” to dish out justice. Or it would have been swept under the carpet someone using some “inquiry”. Or there would have been lots of talk and then nothing happens.
This is sum BULLSH%#!!!!!!! Grown a%% man slaps a little girl on the job & now you wanna rise money to pay his fine!!!! You people are crazy not my money!!!
You are both missing the point……….
This is a hard one for real,I know hitting a woman is wrong,I know being rude to your elders is disrespectful and wrong,but sending out this type of example of paying this mans fine for his action is also WRONG!
MORE THOUGHTB SHOULD HAVE WENT INTO WHAT THESE TWO DID,OBVIOUSLY IT WASN’T WELL THOUGHT THROUGH!!!
but in these times in BERMUDA what really is,WE need to tighten up our brain straps,WORD!
Yes he was WRONG !!!! He lost his JOB !!! Probably has a family who needs his income, theses ladies are reachin out to help in a way he may need !! Get over being negative about their efforts !!!
This girl need to be taught a lesson – as her parents did a VERY POOR job in my opinion !
How did this teach the girl a lesson
the same way old fashioned dicipline worked on us as children donna… a spank if you’re rude.
mind you, the way she has gotten away with it, the way we have condoned her actions by fining mr. pond and taking away his job and allowing her to walk free has taught her that its okay to harass someone to the extent that they want to slap you – they will just be fined and lose their job and you can continue to be disrespectful to others.
i want people who are on here and fighing against this idea to think back and put themselves in his position – if some child disrespected you continuously after being warned to stop what would you do? i know i’d of slapped her. many people’s hands twitch when they are disrespected – its human. and although he wasn’t right to slap her, she shouldn’t have said what she said to begin with.
I’m not too keen on the public response this case has generated. This is an implicit sanction of vigilante justice in certain circumstances. We complain about how young people lack respect. Small wonder when the generation before feels compelled to take the law into their own hands.
Though the sentence does seem a bit steep and one has to wonder why Archibold Warner didn’t think fit to impose a conditional discharge.
Talking about anyone’s mother is a insult. I would have belted that girl too after asking her to watch her mouth the first time… I think a conditional discharge with some sort of stipulation would have been more then enough of a punishment.
While I laud these ladies for trying to help out a fellow Bermudian in a time of trouble, I don’t agree with them raising the money to cover Mr. Pond’s fine. Like the girl who spoke disrespectfully to him, he also needs to learn a lesson…it is NEVER justifiable to physically assault anyone, let alone a teenaged girl, over disrespectful words! Raising this money is equivalent to telling him he was in the right. No bloody wonder Bermuda is in such a mess….
The case should have been dismissed in seconds and the Police ordered to find the child AND her parents and have them brought in front of the Magistrate!
This guy should NOT have lost his job either.
If this is what this Island has finally come down too,we are FCUKED!
It would have made sense to raise awareness of violence emotional, verbal, and physical. To raise money sends a very bad message to men. This girl was wrong. However, there are too many women, living in pain at the hands of violent men. There are too many Children who are living with abusive people. I hope I see these women raising money for the women’s abuse center or child watch. Knee jerk reaction without all the facts. Sad!
Seems to me that the debate is over the view of man against woman, or adult against teen. But I see respect against disrespect. I wonder why the law and society have given children so much liberty (power) to say, act and do as they please without objection. I wonder why the law in agreement with society have taken the authority from a parent to raise a family according to values, and replaced them with so much liberty to the extent at times the child can’t be controlled. The girl was wrong. She owes Mr. Pond a public apology, why? Because the media have made the situation public. Mr. Pond was wrong cause he lashed out. He owned up to it and received a fine, and the loss of his job, (which by the way had nothing to do with the incident). I also think the a stink needs to be made that he lost his job without warning. He was doing his job. A member of the public interfered with him while he was doing his job………he lashed back. Everyone does that, read the paper every day, from police, lawyers, judges, politicians and Joe public, everyone gets it wrong at some point. Some does not get reported, and some remains hidden. A warning would have surficed. Instead the man got thrown under a truck, come on Bermuda………. we can do better. Didn’t we let a man off the hook with a warning the other day for breaking a man’s jaw?
?….
agreed.
A Man….
@ all or nothing..why was he fired from his job then?? if it wasnt related to the incident then he needs to come forth and let the public know that. It is very interesting that their is no mention of the childs parents…oh yeah she’s a minor so they have to protect her…in this case they are protecting the simple parents. oh well that’s Bermuda for you mm
We’ll probably never know the true reason, after all it’s a matter of HR to keep that sort of stuff private, but as this is an extraordinary circumstance, one would hope that the CoH comes forward (with Mr. Pond’s permission, of course), with their rationale. It all seems a bit coincidental if it’s allegedly unrelated.
What about all these video cams around the city? Too bad one of them didn’t pick this up…would have loved to have compared it with that expat’s sucker punch video. SMH that he got off entirely on that one. THAT was deserving of some serious punishment. And I bet you that little witch (spelling’s never been my strong suit…) is gloating this instant that this guy got fined. Bet you anything that she does it again, bet you we haven’t seen the last of her in the headlines.
I do not understand why some of you are so pissed off that these ladies have decided to help Mr Pond by raising Money to help pay his fine???
Its just like they stated in the interview If parents or guardians do not take the time out to properly raise their Children then life is going to teach them; and we all know that life Will Kick your ASS if you make the wrong Choice!!!!
maybe Mr Pond was wrong for slapping that gir; But we all Know that she was dead wrong for what she said to him plus he already give her a verbal warning and she was still going on!! Sorry to say I would have probably Slapped her too
I hope he gets his job Back :/
I can’t get over how gullible Bermudians are and how we believe everything that we’re told. NONE of us was there when this went down, so none of us even knows if Mr. Pond’s versions of events is true. It’s well known that if you assault someone in Bermuda and you say that person insulted your mother, that you can get a slap on the wrist as it’s considered provocation. We don’t even know if this girl said this-and eyewitnesses to the event said she did not.
If she did-which she may have, I’m not saying she didn’t-say this there is still no excuse for a grown man to slap a CHILD in the face hard enough to draw blood. NO EXCUSE. This is called assault and he was rightfully prosecuted and fined. We can’t just go around slapping people because we don’t like what they say (I feel like doing so to my boss practically every single day), and it wasn’t his place to teach the girl a lesson. Even if she said the truck smelled, AS THE ADULT he should have simply ignored her from the start. Teens say stupid things-we all know that. She wasn’t talking about him in particular-just that the truck smelled.
Like I said, none of us was there and while I know there are tons of bratty teens out there, something about what he claimed she said just doesn’t ring true to me. The sentence structure of ‘Your momma’s p***y smells like the trash truck’ doesn’t sound right. They already knew they were discussing the trash truck so you’d think she’d say something like ‘It smells like your momma’s p***y.’ Something about what he said just didn’t sound right here.
These ladies should be ashamed of themselves for condoning this-and they are condoning it, in my opinion. Now here comes the part where Bernews censors me because I know Michael Pond personally, and trust me-he’s no angel.
You sound like a femenist!
She deserved it
I applaud these ladies for their efforts and for supporting this man during his time of need. Yes …he mayhave been wrong for hitting the girl but he also did not deserve the kind of punishment that he receive. I am a young bermudian female myself and I wouldnt DARE speak to anyone like that! Regardless of wheter the man hit me or not, I probably would have been punished by my mother and then made to apologize to him for being disrespectful. This girls family should be ashamed. I do not like/promote violence of any sort, but i 100% disagree with this girl being made a victim..Watch your mouth or get slapped! simple. Thats the way I was raised and thats the way it should be. Maybe then the youth in Bermuda will act civilized and not like animals.
Thank you ladies for promoting and supporting the old bermudian way. two wrongs dont make a right but being disrespectful also has its consequences.