Cook found guilty for eye-poking offence

 
Dave Anthony, a former line cook at Blue Waters Hotel has been convicted for injuring his former boss on the job, an incident that resulted in Anthony also being fired.
Anthony, who pleaded not guilty in the High Court before Justice Keith Thom, was found guilty by a jury which heard that he became defiant when his boss told him to return to his work station.
He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 14.
According to the prosecution’s case, led by Shannon Jones-Gittens, on January 2, 2015, Anthony was assigned to work on the grill in one of the restaurants but the executive sous chef found him in the main kitchen.
The cook was ordered to return to his station and to remain there to execute his duties. However, he told the chef, Juan Gil Tapia, not to give him orders and more so, not to tell him anything.
The victim testified that Anthony then pushed his finger in his face, into one of his eyes.
A medical report indicated that as a result of this the chef suffered a laceration, bruising and some haemorrhaging in the eye.
The evidence also revealed that after the incident, Anthony left the kitchen, went out to the security area and was still behaving aggressively while using indecent language, before he eventually left the compound.
Anthony had told the police that the man had come up in his face and he “may have raised” his hand but he “[didn’t] know what happened.”
At the trial, where he gave evidence, he said that the chef had a pen in his hand and was pointing that hand in his face. He said he hit away his boss’s hand and he then saw the man holding his eye.
At his disciplinary meeting, he said that he had raised his hand but he didn’t mean to put it into the man’s eye.
This was the second on the job incident of this nature with Anthony.
On Boxing Day, just days before this incident, he used indecent language when a supervisor spoke to him about not staying where he was posted.