Bus driver who ran cop with cutlass jailed for 12 months

Apr 24, 2021 News

Kaieteur News – Spending the next 12 months in prison will be the bus driver who ran a policeman with a cutlass on Tuesday.

Screen grab from a video recording of the bus driver running Connelly with a cutlass.

The defendant, Collin White, appeared yesterday at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts where he was slapped with a total of 14 charges. Nine of them were traffic-related while the remaining five were criminal charges.
White pleaded guilty to four of the criminal charges and was sentenced to 12 months in prison. He was also fined $10,000 and further remanded on the fifth criminal charge. In relation to the nine traffic charges, White pleaded guilty to one and was fined $7,500. For the remaining eight he was placed on a total of $240,000 cash bail.
White had entered the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts around 10:15 hrs. He was first escorted to Court Seven where he appeared before Magistrate, Clive Nurse.
There, he was charged with four counts of dangerous driving, one count of failure to wear a seatbelt, breach of condition of prescribed fitness, failure to wear a facemask, Conduct of Driver (Breach) and failure to give right of way. He pleaded guilty to the charge, which stated, that he failed to wear a seatbelt and was fined $7,500. He pleaded not guilty to the other eight charges.
After leaving Court Seven, White was taken to Court Two to be charged criminally by Magistrate, Leron Daly. The five criminal charges he received there were carrying an offensive weapon (the cutlass), resisting arrest, using indecent language, threatening behaviour and disorderly behaviour.
White pleaded guilty to carrying a cutlass and was sentenced to 12 months in prison. He also admitted that he resisted arrest and was sentenced to six months imprisonment. The bus driver accepted that he used indecent language as well and was fined $10,000. White further pleaded guilty to the use of threatening behaviour and he was sentenced to another six months in jail. He will serve the three sentences concurrently.
Furthermore, White does not believe that his behaviour was disorderly and was remanded for that charge. He is expected to return to Court Seven on May 17, 2021, to stand trial for the Traffic-related charges. White will also reappear in Court Two on May 23, 2021 to stand trial for disorderly behaviour.
According to reports, White had chased a cop identified as Constable Edwin Connelly with a cutlass on Tuesday April 20, 2021. The incident took place around 13:15 hrs. on Sheriff Street, Georgetown.
Police had reported that its ranks arrested White on the same day the incident occurred and had placed him in the police lock-ups.
In a recorded cellphone video, Connelly was seen in a heated exchange with the driver and a woman appearing to act as peacemaker between the two men. As the argument intensified, the driver exited the bus and walked around to the passenger door. He returned with a cutlass in his hand and chased Connelly.
Some construction workers who were close by intervened and held the bus driver back – he advanced one more time but the peacemakers who were still holding on to him calmed him down and he eventually walked away.
Connelly had alleged that he stopped the bus driver on Homestretch Avenue because of his (the bus driver) reckless driving.
He reportedly asked the man to produce his driver’s licence but he refused and drove away. The policeman said he then decided to pursue the bus and managed to stop him again on Sherriff Street.

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