Beauty queen in limbo ahead of assault trial
(CNS): Tiffany Conolly, from West Bay, who was crowned Miss Cayman Islands Universe last month despite facing criminal charges for assault, will retain the title at least until the outcome of the trial in October, placing the beauty queen in limbo. However, the pageant committee has however said that she will not make any public appearances or give any interviews until further notice, even though the title carries with it the role of ambassador for the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism.
The controversy surrounding Conolly (24) began before she won the contest. It is still not clear why she was allowed to remain in the pageant once the committee discovered the extent of the charges against her, but CNS has been able to confirm that Conolly misled the committee in the first instance about the seriousness of her legal troubles.
Nevertheless, she was charged in January and pleaded not guilty in Summary Court in March, well before the pageant took place in August, and then went on to win the title.
Conolly is accused of assaulting her former boyfriend, his father and a police officer, as well as damaging a car, following an altercation at her former lover’s home in West Bay last year.
Tourism Minister Kenneth Bryan has still not issued a statement about the situation, despite promising to do so last month. However, CNS understands that the committee has consulted the ministry throughout and followed the guidance given.
In the absence of any substantial comment from the ministry, it seems that the brief statement from the committee that Conolly will retain her crown at least until the case is resolved appears to have been sanctioned by the ministry.
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Category: Local News
Reading through the comments I am wondering what happened to the concept of innocent until proven guilty?
I understand that this women has a history of violence, but presumably that was taken into consideration when she was nominated in the first place.
Assault on boyfriends and police officers who support, or are taken to support their claims to entitlement or damage are in-excuseable unless there is an excuse.
Unlike many of your commentators I would like to hear the evidence before penalizing her.
Sadly the history of violence and abuse with females is often cross generational. I am not suggesting this women is a victim, that will be for the evidence to show or not, but I am suggesting pre-disposition to solve personal or familial problems by resort to violence almost always reflects the lessons taught her by her environment.
We have hungry unemployed people but government sponsoring duplicate beauty pageants still?
Give some support to Pamela’s pageant and save that cash!
?…
who is hungry and why?
who is unemployed and why?
She faces a trial but gets to stay unless and until found guilty. Mac is told to go immediately, and RCIPs hasn’t even completed its investigation let alone charged him. Shouldn’t the same standard be applied in both cases (and I don’t mean that Mac should get to stay as long as he doesn’t give press interviews!) He may be an elected official and she is a private citizen, but they are both benefitting from tax payers money to perform a role representing Cayman.
Mac isn’t gone.
Are you suggesting that the rinky-dink beauty pageant is on par with Parliament and the Speaker? If so that explains some of the choices in elections? We are further gone than I thought.
Several of our elected officials are convicted criminals, as are some of our YCLA recipients, police officers and Immigration officials, so it’s seem unfair to hold Miss Cayman to a higher standard than all of them. We need to just embrace our crookedness.
While I cannot speak for the others, as it is my belief they should not hold office, I can categorically say an abuser an a potential criminal should not be a role model to our young girls to aspire to.
Now, if you feel, that you would like your daughter or grand daughter to be looking up to her as a role model thats your business.
I am not going to get into the “yeah but” bs you want to aspouse.
The only thing I am trying to “aspouse” is Caymanian crookedness. However, since you bring up the point about what young girls should aspire to, let me retort by saying being an objectified beauty queen should definitely not be on the list. I certainly wouldn’t want that for my daughter.
Whether you like it or think it it is.
What you are doing is making excuses for a habitual abuser.
I call a duck a duck. Mac should have been gone YEARS UPON YEARS AGO and this @$#$ should never have made the stage.
Humor is a lost cause these days.
*humour
It is Pirates Week(s) Celebration soon.
Perfect time to celebrate the realities!
This is truly atrocious. Anyone charged with any crime should not be able to run for Miss Cayman, whether guilty or not. End of Discussion. This person is supposed to be representing the Cayman Islands around the world. The committee members are making fools of themselves for not removing her crown, and awards and for embarrassing the Country. As for the Minister of Tourism, he should terminate her, for behavior unbecoming of a representative of the Cayman Islands. ( I want to say ‘of being a Lady!”) Perhaps, because it has gone on for too long, the Minister is now embarrassed? We do not care, just fire her! She is the bigger embarrassment!
Thank you. Well said. KB is just as bad. He should resign for his CAL fiasco also.
Another private sector committee. Folks I keep saying it. Politically appointed boards and committees simply don’t work.
Beyond embarrassing
Leave her alone, Honorable Speaker is standing up for her rights. All is fake news
Fake news? There’s literally an ongoing case.. And to call McKeeva honourable is the joke of the century. He has been caught on tape assaulting a women, now he is being accused of harassing another. To call him honourable is an insult to what this country should be about.
Woosh
It’s not just the charges she is currently facing though, it is her previous history of violence, some of which has been before the court, one of those “found guilty but no conviction recorded” which is reserved for a precious few in the community
Trial is in October, assuming it doesn’t get delayed. The finals are in January. Not a lot of time between the two if the judge doesn’t hand down judgment on the conclusion of the trial and reserves judgment, or if the court date shifts, which happens all the time. They can hardly have her attend the competition and not give interviews or make public appearances!
who says the issue will be resolved in october?
anyway…its the usual civil service/cig incompetence at every turn…
10:07 pray tell me what the civil service involvement in this is?
cig funded and cig on the board….anything else you need clarification on?
Just take here crown. Being charged is enough.
Agree that just being charged should have been enough to disqualify her entering the pageant. It’s even worse though as she’s more than just charged as she’s been found guilty on earlier offenses.
It is past ludicrous that the committee thinks she’s a suitable ambassador!!!
Pathetic, simply typical of how it works here. One day hopefully those in power will actually think about and learn what should be done. I won’t hold my breath though.
This has never happened before. So, let’s not criticize “those in power” for this situation. Plans are now in the works to avoid such future occurrence.
I’m the OP and I was referring to people in power in general – Government, Statutory Authorities etc, and not just this Pageant Committee.
Who are the people on this Committee that would embrace disrepute and ugliness on the Cayman Islands? Perhaps they also sit on CIFA Board? Clearly these Committee members don’t understand the very limited redeeming value and waning purpose of national beauty pageants. Voters should petition to cancel ALL public funds earmarked for pageantry and shut down this antiquated misogynist construct.
Imagine she gets a suspended sentence……
Miss Cayman being interviewed…”What are your thoughts on domestic violence?”
“Well as you know this issue is close to my heart…”.
Exactly. Setting this girl up to fail. Save her the embarrassment and get rid of her now. The paegant is a ridiculous anachronism anyway.
Awesome, so if she gets off or gets another slap on the wrist, she will retain the title and be able to she be able to answer questions on it during her speeches/questions at the pageant and describe how she overcame some difficult hurdles to get where she is today…..
by beating the wrap
rap
I’m better at beatboxing in all honesty.
The minister’s silence after promising to issue a statement is a classic mix of inexperience and living in hope that the whole thing will blow over.
The more this man opens his mouth, or in this case fails to do so, the more blindingly obvious it is that he is unfit for a seat in Parliament, let alone Cabinet.
He is so immature that he genuinely misunderstands his job: instead of being grateful for the trust reposed in him and serving his people and country with humility, he struts around in his power suits like the cat that got the cream, cocky and arrogant, pretending to listen but in reality doing whatever he likes, because he thinks, totally wrongly, that he knows best.
Kenny cant issue anything without permission
Like the permission he has for his illegal billboards you mean?
Kenneth is scared of losing votes, or being disliked, or both.
A legend in his own mind .
He’s not that bad. I you ever talked to him personally, you will find that he’s a good guy. KB is learning on the job and he is clearly doing a far better job than Moses did in 8 consecutive years as Minister of Tourism.
How many young people was ruined by cocaine ?
Well said, he isn’t fit for a Cabinet position He also had brushes with the law for various offences. I don’t know if he was ever found guilty.
How she gets 17 “second chances” and some find that fair, I’d love to know.
Some of unna really don’t understand how bad this burned the other women more deserving of the title.
Caymanians forgive easily and its always been one of their greatest down falls. They don’t realize that forgiving easily creates a mind set of “I’ll get away with it…again” or “I didn’t really do anything wrong”. They are raise to not be accountable but for only a few moments.
At least we give equal opportunity in terms of number of chances to male and female alleged assaulters.
It probably did but, unfortunately as it turns out, she did win. Maybe she deserved to win, aside from her tainted background that speaks otherwise.
I think we do; it will be obvious if she attends this pageant as they will have been informed of everything…the interview she already did was a complete disaster and the host was touching on it throughout…but let’s just carry on and wait for it to come out at the pageant with the world media front and center…then we will all have to feel sorry and the Committee will come out with some soundbite stating they didn’t know it would be brought up etc….
so what,look at how Bush acted at the tourism conference
People that don’t understand how this looks to the outside are the same ones that wote for McKeeva.
Nuff said?
That’s not fair