Former One Bermuda Alliance senator Toni Daniels took to the stand yesterday as the trial of Opposition Leader Marc Bean began.

Mr Bean has denied charges that he used insulting and offensive language towards Ms Daniels outside a Sandys polling station on November 6 last year.

As the trial began in Magistrates’ Court, Ms Daniels testified that at about 2pm that day, she was outside the Somers Lodge where a by-election was taking place involving PLP candidate Jamahl Simmons and Georgia Marshall, of the OBA.

She told the court that she was approached by a man wearing a football jersey who appeared to be intoxicated. Ms Daniels said the man asked her who she was, where she lived and where she worked before moving on to other OBA members, asking them similar questions about her.

Eventually, she said the man moved towards a separate pop-up tent, where PLP politicians and supporters, including Mr Bean, were standing.

“The man was asking several individuals what my name was and at some point someone said my last name,” Ms Daniels said. “Mr Bean referred to me as the OBA fixer or ‘Band-Aid’.

“He seemed relaxed. The drunk fellow was continuing to press people to who I was and Mr Bean referred to me as the OBA political whore.”

Asked about Mr Bean’s demeanour, she said: “He thought it was a bit of a joke. He said it loudly enough for the rest of his group and certainly myself to hear. Several members of the PLP began to laugh and giggle, to which Mr Bean began to laugh.

“I was shocked. I was offended. I believed that Mr Bean was egged on by my reaction to it. He repeated the words to me being the OBA f***ing political whore.”

She said Mr Bean continued, saying he would pay “ten cents a lick”. Ms Daniels said she eventually told Mr Bean that he was “disgusting and completely inappropriate”, but the “tirade” continued.

“He likened me to something else you puff and pass,” she said. “He would have a lick and pass, and they thought it was hilarious.

“He repeated it multiple times. I believe he did so because the members of his camp really thought it was amazing. They were laughing. I believe my obvious distress was also egging on the repetition.”

However, defence lawyer Charles Richardson attacked Ms Daniels’s testimony as inconsistent, noting that the words she attributed to Mr Bean were not the same as those in her police statement.

During cross-examination, Mr Richardson suggested that Mr Bean had never cursed during the incident or called her an OBA “Band-Aid” or “fixer”.

He also suggested that Mr Bean had told the “impaired man” to ask Ms Daniels about “Cosmic Consultants” and challenged her about her connections with Sean Collier and Michael Fahy, which Ms Daniels denied.

Mr Richardson also noted an opinion column written by Ms Daniels less than a week before the incident, in which she said Mr Simmons lacked political philosophy and would “advance any political policy” for personal gains, putting to Ms Daniels that she had essentially described Mr Simmons as a political whore. The defence lawyer further suggested that Mr Bean had approached both Ms Daniels and OBA MP Nandi Davis, who was present throughout the incident, telling them that the men of the OBA valued them both like they were worth ten cents on the dollar.

Ms Daniels responded: “He didn’t say that to me.”

The trial will resume next week.

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