A 56-year-old Barbadian contractor has issued a full public apology following his court appearance this week on charges of assaulting and making threatening remarks to Minister of Health Senator Lisa Cummins, attributing his outburst to overwhelming personal stress tied to a pending school project deadline.
Michael Alphonsa Harris, a resident of Seales Avenue in Goodland, St Michael, spoke to reporters immediately after his Tuesday hearing, expressing profound remorse for the altercation that took place on Saturday. The confrontation unfolded after Harris encountered the health minister, capping off an ongoing disagreement between the two.
“I want to say it nationally: I apologise for my actions,” Harris told reporters. “But my actions happened out of frustration. I was under a lot of pressure to get my school project finished.”
Detectives from the Black Rock Police Station took Harris into custody and filed the two charges against him following the incident. He appeared before Magistrate Jared Richards at the Traffic Court, where the judge imposed a three-month peace bond and opted not to record a formal conviction against him.
Under the terms of the court order, any violation of the peace requirement over the next three months would trigger a $2,000 fine or one-month prison sentence for the assault charge, plus an immediate $1,500 fine or an additional one-month prison term for the threatening language charge.
Harris opened up about his experience spending a night in custody at Dodds Prison ahead of his morning court hearing, noting that while law enforcement and medical staff treated him with courtesy and respect throughout his detainment, the ordeal left a profound mark on him.
“When I reached the precinct, everyone greeted me with respect. Everybody took care of me very well and told me: ‘Just be strong overnight, you’re gonna be good. Tomorrow you’re gonna get to go home,’” he recounted. “From this morning until I got up, saw a doctor, saw a nurse, checked my pressure… It was an experience that I would not want to go back through again. But in life you learn from that experience… right there, you see it and understand the system.”
A particularly lasting impact came from Harris’s observation of the other detainees held in the same corridor during his custody. As the oldest person in that section of the facility, he found himself surrounded by young men facing severe criminal charges—a sight that left him deeply distressed.
“I was there all along in the corridor… I was the oldest guy on that corridor,” Harris said. “I see all the youngsters on that corridor, and it was painful to see so many young men in jail.”
Drawing on the lessons from his own mistake and what he witnessed behind bars, Harris shared a public message urging young people to avoid impulsive actions that could lead to incarceration and keep themselves out of legal trouble.
“The young men got to pull up their shoes, as my mother used to tell me, you got to keep your peace,” he advised.
Now entering the three-month court-supervised peace bond period, Harris says he is fully committed to abiding by the order, meeting any financial obligations that may arise, and closing this troubling chapter of his life for good.