Someone
asked me recently what I knew of the incident many years ago when Eric Reid
knocked out Hubert Hughes in the Anguilla House of Assembly. I was well aware of the incident. This is what I told him. It is quite a long story, so bear with me.
In 1981, I was representing Atlin Harrigan, the
most senior electrician on the island at the time. He came to me for professional
assistance. He had wired the buildings
at the Merrywing Hotel for a recently arrived British investor, John Batson. Batson was refusing to pay his bill for the
electrical work. He had no reason not to
pay, he simply was not paying it. It was
quite a lot of money by the values of that time, about US$30,000.00 as I
recall. So, I started proceedings by
writing the usual “lawyer’s letter” demanding payment in seven days, or else.
There was no response. No letter of repudiation of the claim came
back. Nothing. So, we started the next stage, issuing of a
writ. I paid the Bailiff to serve it on
him.
A few days later, my sole secretary, Marionette
Morton, called me to reception. “Mr
Mitchell, please come outside, there appears to be a problem.” So, I exited my little chambers, and went out
into the main office. There I saw a very
agitated John Batson waving the writ form at me. He was yelling, “Did you send this to me? Do you know who I am? What is the meaning of this?” I replied, very reasonably, I thought, “Mr
Batson, go and see your lawyer. I will
deal with your lawyer. I cannot deal
with you.”
I then turned around and headed back to my
office. The next thing I knew, I was
standing in the middle of reception facing the wrong way, and with my knuckles
hurting like hell. I turned to
Marionette, who was sitting back in her chair with her mouth open and her eyes
even wider open. I asked her, “Marionette,
did something just happen?”
She replied, “Mr Mitchell, you don’t know
what you just did? You punched the man
in his face. When he fell to the floor,
you threw him out into the road.” I
was so horrified, I ran to the glass panes in the front door and looked out,
fully expecting to see a dead John Batson with truck tire marks running over
his prone body. But there was nothing. I opened the door and looked around. Nothing.
He had disappeared, straight to the police station, I imagined.
I went back in and asked Marionette what had
happened. She explained everything. She said, “When you turned your back on the
man, he yelled at you, ‘Listen to me, you arsehole’. You turned back to him with your face in a
rage and hit him in his face. When he
fell down, you pulled him to the door, opened it, and threw him out.” It must have been the adrenalin. He weighed twice as much as I did, so it took
super-human effort. I went back to my
office, sat down and trembled for the next two days waiting for the police to
arrive to question us prior to bringing charges against me. Nothing happened. I did not know what I would tell the
police. I had absolutely no recollection
of anything after I turned away from Batson and headed back to my office, until
I came to myself and spoke to Marionette about why my fist was hurting so much.
Well, after a couple of days, Batson’s lawyer,
Billy Herbert, sent over a cheque for the US$30,000.00. And, that was the end of it. Atlin used to laugh after that and say that I
had discovered a new debt collection technique.
A couple of years later, I was at an
International Tax Planning Association workshop in Monte Carlo. The theme of the workshop was, “How does a
busy professional protect himself/herself from the pressures and demands of
clients.” There were several
sessions including professional insurance, the need for exercise, and the like.
One of the sessions was conducted by a
nutritionist. He explained to us about
hypoglycemia. I learned that if you
don’t have a good breakfast then the slightest thing can set you off, and you
lose your temper. The first meal of the
day is not called “break-fast” for nothing. Your blood sugar level is at its lowest when
you wake up, not having eaten for several hours. You need to have a proper meal to bring your
blood sugar to the right level. Without
it, you can’t absorb any sudden injection of adrenalin. It could be a slamming door or a telephone
ringing loudly that sets you off. If
your blood sugar level is unbalanced, a surge of adrenalin into the blood
stream might set off the fight or flight instinct, and you react with excessive
anger.
This was the way one hundred thousand years ago
we were able effortlessly to climb to the top of the tree in the jungle when we
came around a corner and found ourselves face to face with a saber toothed
tiger. Now, it is not tigers, but a
slamming door or a ringing phone that sets us off. Or, apparently, in my case, a red-faced
Englishman calling me an arsehole.
After that workshop I equipped my office with a
toaster, a fridge, and a coffee maker. When I got into the office each day between
3:30 and 4:00 am, the first thing I did was make myself breakfast. Sometimes it was a New York businesswoman’s
power breakfast. Sometimes it was baked
beans on toast. These were some of the
meals recommended by the nutritionist. My blood sugar level seems to have been fine
after that. I never hit anyone in my
office again. And, I was now ready to
take on my first hypoglycemic attack case.
Oh, and I built the concrete staircase with the
wooden railings that gave access to the office at the Babrow building. It is still there, opposite Gee Wee’s
Restaurant. You will notice that the
stairs are at right angles to the door. That was specially designed so that if I ever
threw another person out of the office, the railing would prevent him from
landing in the road in front of passing traffic.
A couple of years later, I had reason to put my
learning about hypoglycemia to good use for the first time. It had to do with the Minister of Education,
the Hon Eric Reid, knocking out the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon Hubert
Hughes, in the precincts of the House of Assembly.
At a meeting of the House of Assembly in the
old House of Assembly building (presently the Statistics Department), Hubert turned
his attention to Eric Reid, the Honourable Minister of Education. Eric was also the manager of a transport
company owned by Osborne and himself, Island Transport (or its predecessor). He delivered truckloads of water to
householders whose cisterns had run dry.
Hubert spent the entire morning addressing the
Speaker (and the nation, as the sitting was broadcast live over Radio Anguilla)
about the dishonesty of the Minister of Education, who he alleged, filled his
water trucks from the public water supply pump in The Valley and by stealing
water from unoccupied buildings, and then selling the water to needy
householders. The Speaker of the House
who permitted this ad hominem attack was, by this time, none other than
the previously mentioned electrician, the now Honourable Atlin Harrigan.
At the end of the session, Eric was walking out
of the House. Hubert was immediately
behind him. It seems that Hubert
repeatedly jabbed his finger into the back of Eric’s ribs, saying, “Boy, I
got you there. I could see you were feeling
it.” Eric explained to me that he
simply blacked out. He saw red. The next thing he knew, he was turned around
180 degrees facing the Speaker’s desk. Hubert was lying unconscious at his feet, and
his right fist was hurting like hell. He
had no idea what had happened until Chief Minister Emile Gumbs stepped over
Hubert’s prostrate body and explained it to him.
Just a few months previously, Lyn Bell had
asked me to represent him in the police case brought against him when he jumped
a French professional tennis player and beat his face in on a car door, nearly cutting
off his ear in the process. The event was
the opening of a lady barrister’s law chambers in the location it presently
exists. Lyn was attracted to the lawyer,
but she at that time was more interested in the much younger French tennis
coach at Malliouhana Hotel. Lyn
explained that he had been on a diet for weeks, trying in vain to regain his 18-year-old
physique, when he saw the lady chatting to the Frenchman at the reception. He lost all control and jumped the man. He had no recollection of the incident. Apparently, from what he was told, a wine glass
held in his right hand which he used to repeatedly beat the head of the
Frenchman against a car door broke, and accidentally nearly cut off the ear.
All the guests were witnesses. These included the Governor, Ministers of
Government, the Bishop who had just blessed the new office, all members of the
Bar Association, and the great and good of the island. There was no chance of us pleading mistaken
identity.
Lyn was charged with several serious assault
offences. I suggested that he obtain a
medical opinion on the likely effect of his fasting on his mental state when he
was struck by this sight of the object of his affection chatting to his
competition. The medical report he
obtained from doctors in Canada was to the effect that the patient had suffered
a hypoglycemic attack over which he had no control. He had not eaten properly for some days.
We pleaded guilty to a relatively minor charge
of common assault, and I presented to the court the medical report in
mitigation. Lyn was given a very mild
sentence. He was placed on a six months’
bond to be of good behaviour and to keep the peace. Lyn was subsequently sued for damages in the
High Court, and he accepted liability for an amount of damages in the area I
told him the court was bound to give in any event.
Anyway, Eric was charged with a variety of
offences. They included the offence of “an
assault within the precincts of the House of Assembly.” This charge incurred a mandatory penalty of exclusion
from the House of Assembly for a period of one year. This was a serious situation for a legislator
and a Minister of Government to find himself in. He could not afford to miss meetings of the
House for an entire year. He would have to
resign as a Minister. He was also
charged with offences of common assault. After discussion with Eric, we offered to
plead guilty to the lesser offence of common assault.
Because of my experience with John Batson and with
Lyn’s case, I had a good idea what had happened to Eric. However, Eric did not have the means to
acquire the expensive medical report that Lyn had obtained. But he managed to get a local one. This explained that he was a diabetic. His blood sugar level was affected. He was subject, when placed under extreme
stress, to a hypoglycemic attack which would induce the flight or fight
syndrome over which he had absolutely no control. Any violence he exhibited would have been
entirely outside of his control.
Despite his lack of control, we could not plead
“not guilty because of the hypoglycemic attack”. That is essentially a plea of temporary
insanity. Politically, insanity,
temporary or otherwise, would have been unacceptable. So, we offered to plead guilty to common
assault. The attorney-general, Richard
Whitehead, accepted the plea deal.
I had only two authorities upon which to base
my argument that Eric was entitled to a light sentence. One was suggested to me by my cousin, David
Carty, Eric’s political adviser. It was the
Biblical story of Jesus seizing a strap and whipping the money changers from
the Temple. The other was the speech of
Iago in which he declaims, “Who steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis nothing …
but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him
and makes me poor indeed.”
I argued in mitigation that if Jesus himself
could lose his temper, then so much an ordinary man. There was such a thing as legitimate
anger. And, that, just as with Iago, the
theft by Hubert of Eric’s good name was the greatest offence that could be imagined. It was not surprising that, with his medical
condition, he just lost it and struck out.
He should be excused.
Magistrate Roop Sharma put Eric on the same bond, to
keep the peace for six months and be of good behaviour. Eric later asked me what that meant. I explained that he was prohibited for a
period of six months from cuffing Hubert again.
He had no problem after that attending the House of Assembly. And, Hubert never gave him reason to strike
him again. Indeed, years later, when
Hubert was Chief Minister, I have known Eric to be in Hubert’s office sitting
at his side assisting with the interviewing of prospective investors in the
island. There were no permanent hard
feelings on either side.
