MAVERICK DeAbreu, for whom the police had issued a wanted bulletin last week in connection with the assault of Gay-Rights Activist Joel Simpson, on Monday turned himself in to the police.

DeAbreu, 29, of Broad Street, Charlestown, was accompanied by his lawyer, Siand Dhurjon, who handed him over to the police at the Brickdam Police Station.
He also gave a statement to the police, in which he reportedly denied being involved in the assault of Simpson. According to DeAbreu, he did not touch, encourage or assist in the attack of the man.

The Police had issued the bulletin for De Abreu last week after he was cited as being one of the men who assaulted Simpson on June 15, 2019, in the vicinity of the Bourda Market, here in the city.

Simpson, who is the Managing Director of the NGO, Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination (SASOD), was reportedly beaten by a group of men who have since been labelled “homophobic”.

Following the incident, which left him nursing a number of bruises mainly to his hands, knees and sides, Simpson took to his social media page to detail what had occurred.
He began by saying that the men had deliberately thrown alcohol on him and his friends while they were out partying at popular night club, Palm Court.
Simpson said that at first, he and his friends assumed that it was an accident, but when it occurred again, they took action by reporting the matter to the supervisor on duty which proved to be futile.

“Sometime after midnight, as the crowd started to grow, a group of men came in and stood at the back bar just behind us. Shortly after their arrival, I felt beer being thrown on us. I thought it must have been a drunken spill, so I ignored it, but we then felt a second douse of beer on us,” he recounted.

He added: “At this point, we realised this was very deliberate. I went to the bar and asked who was the supervisor on duty. I was directed to a man who wasn’t wearing any uniform or badge to identify him as staff. I reported to him what happened, and his response was, ‘We don’t want man wining pun man here.’”

Simpson said the response left him “perplexed” and while some of his female friends began to verbally respond to the group of individuals who threw the drinks, he discouraged them from physically confronting the men.

In the social media post, Simpson explained that the trip to the nightclub was part of “a long-planned, bar-hopping excursion,” which saw them visiting three other locations earlier that night.

After the experience at the club, Simpson reportedly went to The Strip Restaurant & Bar at the Giftland Mall, and later the Bourda Market where he sought out a popular shop owner to get a snack.

He told his friends and followers that this is when the same group of six men, who’d thrown their drinks on him earlier in the night, pounced on him.