Webster claims he is not left handed

(CNS): As the court was shown the video evidence of Errington Webster masturbating in front of a 13-year-old girl, the former firefighter said the footage showed him using his left hand to carry out “the nefarious act”, which he said demonstrated that something was wrong because he is not left-handed. Continuing to give evidence Tuesday, Webster (55), who is charged with three counts of indecent assault on the girl and one of gross indecency, said he could not have been in his right mind.

Repeating several times that he was right-handed, while the video showed him holding his penis with the left hand, he said this was an indication that something was not right. He also said that he did not sound like himself and there was obviously something wrong.

On the video, Webster can be heard pleading with the girl to do something (what he is pleading for is not evident) but she appears unwilling to meet the request.

Crown counsel Darlene Oko asked him to indicate where it was on the video that he was in some way in an unconscious state or unaware of performing the act, but he continued to suggest that the use of his left hand was the key to this assertion that he was not in a conscious state of mind.

“Whatever I’m doing on that video, I don’t recall it and I did not do it intentionally,” he told the jury. “I was not acting normal and the nefarious act was carried out with my left hand. That’s not me.”

Webster persisted in the claim that he has no memory, that he was “jooked” in the neck and that the extra dose of the medication he was taking combined with grapefruit juice had cause some kind of blackout.

During cross-examination, the prosecutor asked him to go through the day’s events before the video was taken, and he was able to give a relatively detailed account of the day. While his story differed in part to that given by the child, as he claimed that another unnamed young girl was with them, he recounted a similar chain of events.

Webster said they went to Wendy’s for food and then on to J. Michaels for her to buy clothes. He remembered paying for the take-out, sitting in his truck listening to Christian radio while the young girls shopped, and then paying for the clothes and taking them back to Savannah. He told the court that he dropped the unnamed friend at Countryside before heading to a road in Bodden Town, where the girl had asked him to go so she could check on another friend.

This is where the video was reportedly filmed and where the incident occurred, but it is at this point that Webster claims he cannot recall anything. But he then regained his memory and was able to take the child home before having another odd spell in the car port of his house.

Within a half hour of coming home, and despite his claims of these two blackouts and the pains in his head and feeling disoriented, there is evidence that Webster was texting the young girl about the trip. In the messages recovered by police from their phones, he made no mention of the strange episodes where he blanked out, the lapses in memory, or pains in his neck and head or even his suspicions that she had “jugged” him in some way.

Continuing to deny the allegations made against him, he also sought to dispel the idea that he had cursed at the child in messages exchanged between the two of them a few days later. Suggesting a misunderstanding, he said the letters ‘fuk’ were not what they seemed but a shorthand form of “for you know”.

He suggested that messages where the two of them appeared to be arguing about her spending time with a boy of her own age and his association with other girls were part of the counselling strategy that he was using to help the child. He said that others may have been messages sent by mistake and were meant for one of the many groups he had created as a community leader and would-be politician.

As he struggled to explain some exchanges, he was asked about a message from the girl accusing him of being jealous and telling him to “cut that shit out”. But he denied being jealous of the child, as he said that was an allegation made by her.

“I wasn’t jealous, God forbid. I was concerned for the child,” he added as the cross-examination came to a close.

The case continues.