CI footballer accused of violent attack on 3 women

(CNS): Just before his trial opened in Grand Court on Thursday, Derrin Kennedy Ebanks (31), a former member of the Cayman Islands national football squad, pleaded not guilty to 13 charges relating to an alleged booze-fuelled, violent rampage against three women last September. Outlining the case against Ebanks, crown prosecutor Scott Wainwright told the jury that, in a drunken rage, the defendant went to the home of his ex-girlfriend and the mother of his two-year-old son in West Bay, where he violently attacked her and a friend who was visiting.

He left those women badly beaten and moved on to another ex-lover’s apartment. There he conducted another violent assault and kept the woman hostage in the home throughout the night, the prosecutor said.

Wainwright told the jury that Ebanks repeatedly punched, kicked and stamped on the women during the first attack. He also threw his child’s mother into a glass coffee table, which smashed and caused an injury to her arm, and during the repeated beating of her friend he fractured her nose.

Describing the second brutal assault, the prosecutor said that after the woman let Ebanks in, her dog went to greet him, but he kicked the pet across the room and told his former lover that it was “not the night to f*#k with me”. During this violent encounter he stole the woman’s glasses so that she could not see properly, dragged her to the bedroom by the ear and bit her nose. When she tried to escape from him, he dragged her back to the bed by her breast.

The prosecutor said he effectively held the woman hostage in her own home until he left the next morning after asking her what had happened.

All three women made reports to police, who arrested Ebanks the following day. The jury heard that he had taken police officers to where he had thrown away the cell phone he took from the second victim in the first attack, but when interviewed he gave a no comment response. Wainwright told the court that up until trial, he had not given a full account of what occurred to the authorities.

As the first of the women recounted the emotional ordeal, she told the jury that while she was out with her friend earlier in the evening she had seen her baby’s father at a beach bar, where he was clearly drunk.

She said that she and her friend had returned home sometime after sunset. She had put her son to bed and then had texted Ebanks, telling him he could come and visit the child before he went to sleep if he wished. But he had not responded. The two women, who described each other as close friends, remained in the home and began to make plans to order food.

A few hours later Ebanks turned up at the house and banged loudly on the door. Afraid that he would wake her child and disturb the neighbours, his former girlfriend let him in. He arrived with a plate of food and was, she said, still drunk and appeared aggressive as he pushed into the house and sat on the couch, where he began to eat his food.

Surprised by his late arrival but trying to be conversational, the woman asked how his night had been. “It was great” because he had “f*#*ed some chick in a parking lot and beat the shit out of some guy”, he told her.

Upset by his rude comments and demeanour, the women both began to suggest he leave and come back another time to see his son when he was less intoxicated.

When her friend repeated the request, Ebanks told her to mind her own business, but she persisted, asking him to leave and “go sleep it off”. He turned to his former girlfriend and demanded to know if she wanted him to leave. When she said nothing, he threw the food in her face and the violent attack began and lasted for several minutes.

Ebanks’ ex-girlfriend described being beaten around the head many times, being dragged by her hair and pushed into the coffee table, when her arm was cut and glass stuck in her flesh. But at some point she had blacked out for a while and during this time Ebanks had left.

When she came around and managed to stand, she called for her friend, who was by then hiding outside the house. The two women quickly went back inside and locked the door. But she said they soon realised that Ebanks had left his phone, which they used it to call 911, since her phone had been smashed and he had stolen her friend’s phone, and the women were afraid he would return to collect his own phone.

In the call recording, which was played to the jury, both women recounted the events and were clearly terrified and emotional. They had locked themselves in the bathroom, where they remained until the police arrived.

When the the second woman took the stand and recounted her version of the story, she was cross-examined by Ebanks’ attorney, Lee Halliday-Davis, who suggested that the violence had, in fact, been triggered by her.

The defence attorney further suggested that, in a misguided effort to protect her friend, she had hit the food out of Ebanks’ hand and then pounced on him. This had then triggered a struggle, which resulted in his former girlfriend slipping on the food and crashing into the coffee table. As Ebanks tried to protect himself from the friend’s attack and pushed her away, she had crashed into furniture and sustained her injuries, Halliday-Davis said.

The witness said that the allegation was “laughable” and “not what happened”. As she was repeatedly pressed by the lawyer that she was the protagonist and had attacked Ebanks as a result of misplaced loyalty to her friend, she said that was “a total fiction”.

The case continues.

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