Jurors on Tuesday watched several minutes of footage that prosecutors say shows the incidents that led to the former premier and Speaker of the House, McKeeva Bush, being charged with the indecent assault of two women.
During the Grand Court’s morning session, the jury of five women and two men were shown CCTV video footage of Bush hugging and holding the first complainant, with his arm around her, and kissing her shoulders.
She is among several women Bush is seen hugging or putting his arms around in the video clips.
The jury had earlier been told that the alleged assault of the second complainant happened off camera, in a blind spot in the bar area of the hotel’s ballroom foyer, where the CCTV cameras could not reach. The footage shows Bush moving into the blind spot.
The video clips were extracted from an hour-and-15-minute-long video filmed between 7:55pm and 9:10pm on 13 Sept. 2022, which was obtained from The Ritz-Carlton hotel by police via a search warrant, the court heard.
Bush faces two charges of indecent assault, stemming from incidents which allegedly occurred at a government-hosted cocktail reception that was part of a Caribbean Tourism Organization conference being held in Grand Cayman.
Crown prosecutor Charles Miskin and Detective Sergeant Russell These, of the Major Incident Room of the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service, walked the jurors though what they were seeing in the video clips. Each juror, as well as the three alternate jurors, was also directed to several still photographs taken from the video, in their bundles of evidence.
To give jurors a clear idea of the location of the alleged assaults and the positions of the cameras, they were also shown a diagram of the ballroom foyer, where the assaults are alleged to have happened, and terrace of the hotel.
Detective Sergeant These confirmed that none of the video footage, captured on three separate cameras, had accompanying audio.
He acknowledged that there was a blind spot, underneath a camera positioned above the bar area. Bush spent some time at the bar section, These noted, but said he could not have left that area without being picked up by one of the other cameras.
Video footage
The video begins with Bush walking into the foyer of the ballroom area of The Ritz-Carlton, and stopping to talk to the first complainant and another woman, who is expected to be a witness in the case, as they were standing together by a tall table near the entrance.
After Bush hugs and kisses them both, and places his arms around them, the witness eventually goes to talk to a man nearby, whom These identified as a police officer in plain clothes, who was at the event “as security, essentially”.
The officer goes over to Bush, who is still holding on to the first complainant, and speaks to him, but Bush turns away and turns his attention back to the complainant, placing his right arm over her shoulder. She then moves away from Bush.
Later footage shows the complainant going to speak to her husband, who was also at the event. On Monday, Miskin had told the jury that after Bush had kissed the woman’s shoulder, he had indicated her husband, who was also attending the event, and said to her “If he saw me doing this, he would not like it,” and kissed her on the shoulder again.
The next clip shows Bush moving towards the bar area and entering the blind spot. Some time later, the second complainant also enters that area, and disappears from the sight of the camera. A few minutes later, she is seen walking away from the bar area and out of the foyer.
The jurors were also shown clips of Cline Glidden, a former political colleague and friend of Bush’s, entering the bar area and then accompanying Bush to the outside terrace, via a doorway leading from the ballroom foyer. They talk for several minutes and re-enter the foyer. Later, it appears that Glidden and others are attempting to get Bush, who is holding a glass in his hand, to leave the event.
Eventually, in the final clip, he is shown leaving the foyer with Glidden and three women.
The seven jurors watched the footage on a large video screen mounted on the courtroom wall. The three alternate jurors, members of the media, and the lawyers watched it on smaller screens in front of them.
Bush, wearing a white face mask and dressed in a light grey jacket, tan trousers, with a yellow shirt and matching handkerchief in his breast pocket, watched the big screen from the dock as some of the video footage was shown. At times, he turned his back to the screen to check notes and documents or watched his lawyer’s monitor instead.
Hotel visit
In the early afternoon, the jurors, the lawyers, presiding judge Stanley John, the defendant and court staff visited the scene at The Ritz-Carlton.
During the 15-minute tour, jurors were guided through the hotel’s ballroom lobby.
Pointing to two cameras, mounted to the ceiling on opposite sides of the room, which stretches approximately 120 feet, Detective Sergeant These told the jurors there were two blind spots that resulted from their positions and the distance of the room.
“The bar would have been located just outside the line of the view of this second camera,” he said. “This would have placed it partially in the camera’s blind spot. Additionally, there were other blind spots created by the columns; however, what might have been a blind spot for one camera might not have been for the other.”
The case will continue on Wednesday, when These will be cross-examined by Bush’s defence attorney Sallie Bennett-Jenkins.
Additional reporting by Compass journalist Andrel Harris.
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