Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

A con­fronta­tion dur­ing po­lit­i­cal can­vass­ing in Spey­side turned in­to a po­lice mat­ter on Fri­day af­ter To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) can­di­date for To­ba­go East, David Thomas, re­port­ed be­ing as­sault­ed in­side a house.

The man in­volved, Kevin Cord­ner, a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) sup­port­er, said he was the own­er of the home and was an­tag­o­nised. He be­lieves the en­tire in­ci­dent could have been avoid­ed if Thomas had sim­ply left when asked.

Both the TPP and the PNM have is­sued state­ments con­demn­ing the al­ter­ca­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, Thomas told them he was in­vit­ed in­to the home of a woman at 5 pm to talk.

Re­call­ing his side of the sto­ry to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, he said, “There was this la­dy I gave a drop the day be­fore ... and I didn’t ask her any­thing about vot­ing for me ... I went to the house, and she was sit­ting at a ta­ble in the house. I went in and she in­vit­ed me to sit and we were hav­ing a very cor­dial con­ver­sa­tion.”

While seat­ed and talk­ing with her, he claimed Cord­ner en­tered the house, ver­bal­ly as­sault­ed him, pulled the chair he was sit­ting on—caus­ing him to fall—and then pushed him out.

Thomas said he lat­er felt pain in his neck and back, and his blood pres­sure rose, prompt­ing doc­tors at the Rox­bor­ough Hos­pi­tal to keep him for mon­i­tor­ing. He said he was heart­bro­ken by the in­ci­dent and in­tends to press charges.

“In the process, I hurt my neck and back try­ing to brace the falling and then he walked in­to me and pushed me three times. Then he pushed back­wards. He pushed me back­wards a sec­ond time and I went in­to the door­post out of the house. When I get up and gath­ered my­self he pushed me a third time out of the house. I walked out of the yard. I feel so bad­ly about this. I didn’t ex­pect it and it was peo­ple I know.”

But Cord­ner is deny­ing every­thing. He told Guardian Me­dia it was his home, and the woman in­volved is his niece who was vis­it­ing. He claimed Thomas was not in­vit­ed, and af­ter he asked him to leave three times, Thomas re­fused and a heat­ed ar­gu­ment start­ed.

“I saw him in­side when I drop off clothes I picked up from down­stairs. I went to him and I said, ‘Mr Thomas, this is a PNM home, your en­er­gy and re­sources will be bet­ter used some­where else’. Ca­su­al­ly like that. We had a back and forth and I asked him to leave my premis­es.”

Cord­ner ad­mit­ted to curs­ing and pulling the chair, but in­sist­ed he nev­er laid a hand on Thomas. He said Thomas left, then re­turned to es­ca­late the sit­u­a­tion.

“To­tal­ly dis­re­spect­ful­ly and then shout­ing down at me in my house that’s when I got up­set and or­dered him out. Noth­ing phys­i­cal hap­pened, noth­ing.”

Cord­ner said he was not wor­ried about le­gal threats and that two wit­ness­es could con­firm his side of the sto­ry. Po­lice said en­quiries are con­tin­u­ing.

Both the PNM and TPP are call­ing for peace and uni­ty on the is­land.

The PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil said it was con­cerned about al­le­ga­tions in­volv­ing one of its sup­port­ers in the in­ci­dent.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the PNM asked the pub­lic not to spec­u­late or as­sign blame be­fore the facts are known.

“We ex­press our sin­cere con­cern for Mr Thomas’ well-be­ing and ex­tend our thoughts to his loved ones,” the PNM said.

The par­ty said it “un­equiv­o­cal­ly de­nounces vi­o­lence, ag­gres­sion, and any form of hos­til­i­ty in the po­lit­i­cal are­na” and reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to peace­ful de­mo­c­ra­t­ic en­gage­ment.

“Our cam­paign will con­tin­ue to be root­ed in the val­ues of ci­vil­i­ty, com­mu­ni­ty, and in­tegri­ty,” the state­ment said.

Mean­while, TPP de­scribed the in­ci­dent as “a vi­o­lent as­sault” on its can­di­date. The TPP has called on the po­lice to car­ry out a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion and en­sure jus­tice is served.

“We con­tin­ue to stand by Mr Thomas in full sup­port and ex­tend our grat­i­tude to all those who have ex­pressed con­cern for his well-be­ing,” the par­ty said.