Delivery man charged with indecent assault, to pay $80,000 in restitution
KINGSTON, Jamaica – A delivery man was hit with an indecent assault charge after he reportedly forcefully kissed a woman at a business place he was making deliveries to.
He was also ordered to pay $80,000 in restitution.
Damion Downer, pleaded guilty to the offence when he appeared in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court on Tuesday.
The court was told that on April 19, Downer held onto the woman and repeatedly kissed her, despite her registering her displeasure.
Defending his action, Downer told Senior Parish Judge Lori-Ann Cole-Montaque that she had taken his phone number, but she never called him.
“I’m guilty of holding her hand and asking for a kiss… I held onto her hand, not pull [her],” Downer corrected the prosecution.
He added that she tried to push him away from her.
When the judge asked if they were friends or associates, he said, “yes, basically friends.”
But the woman denied that they were friends. She said she only knew him because he runs delivery to her work place.
“She’s not a stranger to me,” he said.
“I don’t believe she’s a stranger to you because you have interacted with her based on what you have said. But, to the level of being your friend, she’s not your friend. Based on what you’re saying, she take your number and she nuh call you, what greater sign is there that she nuh have no interest [in you]?” Cole-Montaque said. “Sir, wake up. She nuh have no interest, so why in God’s green earth you would think she would a want to kiss you or have nothing fi do with you?”
“Some Jamaican man unuh too familiar. Unuh too friendly. People too casual. You not supposed to be walking and touching people and all that sort of thing, you know,” she added.
Explaining how this incident has affected her, the woman said she now hides whenever he makes deliveries.
“I think compensation is appropriate in this case,” the judge said.
After agreeing to pay the $80,000, Downer apologised to the complainant by saying, “I’m sorry for touching your hand…”
He was also made the subject of a probation order for one year.
“You have a mother. Sometimes we have to tailor ourselves in terms of what we would like for those persons around us. If the treatment is not good for the sister, mother, anybody else, it’s not good for the other person,” Judge Cole-Montaque said.
