WESTERN BUREAU:

An Elderslie, St Elizabeth craft vendor who used indecent language to a policeman during an argument at a bus terminal, got off with a warning after explaining himself in court on Tuesday.

Owen Pitter pleaded guilty with explanation to using indecent language and resisting arrest. He also pleaded guilty to possession of less than an ounce of ganja when he appeared in the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court.

The court was told that on February 13, Pitter was a passenger on a bus entering the Montego Bay bus terminal from St Elizabeth, when an argument developed between him and the driver.

A plainclothes policeman intervened and Pitter used expletives, following which he was arrested and charged.

Pitter told Resident Magistrate (RM) Vivienne Harris that he got into an argument with the bus driver after the other man refused to aid him with his wicker-basket material. He also denied that the policeman had identified himself as an officer.

"The officer jumped on me, assaulted me and accused me of resisting arrest. This was his way of identifying himself as a police officer," Pitter declared.

Accepting his account of events, RM Harris admonished and discharged Pitter on the resisting arrest and indecent language charges. He was ordered to surrender his fingerprints for the ganja charge.

'The officer jumped on me, assaulted me and accused me of resisting arrest. This was his way of identifying himself as a police officer.'