Charity leader hits back at online accusations

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Charity head Michael Swain is considering his options after being called a liar on Facebook.

Ruling party general election candidate John Devere Gibbons called the Bermuda Rowing Association president a liar for stating that his organisation had paid to clear up a rat problem at White’s Island, a statement reported in Monday’s edition of this newspaper.

On the Facebook forum ‘Bermuda Election 2012’, Mr Gibbons also said Mr Swain’s charity had a racial and political agenda.

Last night Mr Swain said he was “discussing my options to have my name cleared” in light of the remarks on Facebook.

Referring to Mr Swain’s reported comments in Monday’s paper as “an absolute lie,” Mr Gibbons, who works for Vector Control which deals with rodent infestations in Bermuda, told the online forum that he was present when the rat poison was put on the island.

“Vector Control has a taxpayer funded rat control service so I know he or his organisation did not PAY for this service. Once again even white charities are united in their opposition to make anything designed to help blacks look nefarious.”

He repeated his allegations in several posts on the online forum.

“This is a clear example of white political anger and resentment being used to discredit an organisation that is designed to help gang members who, if we are realistic, are not white,” said one posting.

Mr Swain provided receipts to show that he had purchased rat poison on two occasions — June 9 and June 30.

He explained that he had called Vector Control several times to report the problem but there was no “apparent work done”.

“There was no bait in the receptacles so we had to go out and get it done ourselves, because the problem was quite extreme,” he said.

“And we had our community programmes starting in a couple of weeks’ time.”

When contacted Mr Gibbons said that Vector Control put the rat poison out on June 28.

The dispute continued on the forum yesterday when Mr Swain went on line to demand a retraction of Mr Gibbons’ accusations.

“If it was a misunderstanding, why then call me a liar and even worse a racist. I’m just incredulous at that part,” said Mr Swain.

“Our public community programmes speak for themselves as far as our commitment to our mission to the whole Bermuda community.”

Mr Swain continued: “When I spoke to them (Vector Control) previously they seemed very nice. I am pretty shocked they would call me a liar. That’s defamatory.”

Mr Gibbons had not deleted his statements by press time last night.

"I simply cannot understand how me stating that we bought some rat poison can lead to this maelstrom of abuse and character assassination,” Mr Swain said.

“My wife and I have given 90 percent of all of our spare time to the charity for the past eight years and our record speaks very clearly about our commitment to the community. It is ironic that in the year I was awarded ‘Volunteer of the Year’ people are tying to bring me down. I am very saddened by this overreaction to simply trying to do the right thing."

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