Overzealous sex-texting J’can cop loses job

HAMILTON, Bermuda — A Jamaican-born police officer who sent a married woman menacing text messages after a brief sexual encounter has escaped a conviction — but has lost his job after 10 years with the Bermuda Police Service (BPS).

A Magistrates Court heard that Robert Webster, 48, who is also married, refused to accept that the woman did not want to continue the affair.

When she rebuffed his advances, he launched a campaign of harassment in which he accused her of giving him a sexual disease and threatened to post obscene pictures of her on the Internet.

“Mr Webster's employment with the Bermuda Police Service ended around June 30 by way of end of contract. He served with the BPS for 10 years,” said police spokesman Robin Simmons.

Webster told the victim, who was not named in court, he would report her to the police and warned: "I will show you not to start something you can't finish."

Webster, who served within the Criminal Investigation Unit, pleaded guilty to two charges of sending offensive and menacing messages via telephone.

Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner chose to hand him a conditional discharge, which means he has no conviction against his name.

The prosecutor Cindy Clarke said the victim was also a guest worker from Jamaica who met Webster on her second day in Bermuda.

"The defendant proposed an arrangement where they could continue to be intimately involved. The complainant told the defendant that she did not want to continue the relationship, as both she and the defendant were married to other people," the prosecutor said.

"The defendant continued to pursue the complainant, making contact via text message and telephone calls. He accused her of giving him a sexually transmitted disease and indicated that in his capacity as a police officer he would contact Interpol to access her husband's medical records. Although the complainant insisted that she did not have a disease, the defendant persisted in making contact."

Defence lawyer Victoria Pearman said Webster had lost his job.

"My client also had the daunting challenge of explaining these incidents to his wife. She is now in court to support him."