Bahamian man admits indecent assault
Yesterday a magistrate remanded a 60-year-old man to prison, pending sentencing for forcibly kissing a 15-year-old girl.
Vernal Munnings changed his plea to guilty before the prosecution opened its case against him.
According to the prosecutor, Sergeant Kenny Thompson, around noon on April 19, 2021, Munnings grabbed the child by the neck and kissed her on the lips.
When she pushed him away, Munnings told the girl, whom he had known for eight years before the incident, that he “liked her,” Thompson said
The girl ran to a neighbour’s house and called her mother.
Munnings’s lawyer, Alex Morley, asked the court to consider sentencing him to probation.
He said the father of six was remorseful and had no prior convictions.
According to Morley, Munnings had worked at the Ministry of Education as a carpenter for 27 years. During that period, he said, there had been no reports of inappropriate contact with children.
Serville said he wanted to know what was operating on the defendant’s mind when he assaulted the child.
The magistrate said the Munnings’s grossly improper actions didn’t happen with a stranger but with a child, he knew.
He asked, “Was there some build-up to this?”
Morley said that Munnings didn’t know what had happened.
Serville said, “It is not just simply a kiss; it is far more than that. It is a violation of a person of tender years that may hurt their ability to form decent relationships for the rest of their life.”
Serville said he needed time to consider an appropriate sentence.
Munnings returns to court on Friday, November 5.
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