An American tourist described how he was attacked during an alleged robbery at the hands of a Southampton man while walking back to his hotel, near the Southampton Rangers Club.

Paul Lamar Smith, 37, of Scenic Heights Drive, is charged with robbing Michael Connelly, 50, on November 26, 2005, after he and his wife left a restaurant. Smith has denied the charges.

Mr. Connelly, who returned to the Island to testify, told the Supreme Court that while walking near the club on South Shore Road, Smith assailed him from behind in an attempt to take his wallet.

Mr. Connelly and his wife were staying at the Fairmont Southampton Princess and decided to take a walk before returning to the hotel after they had dinner at the Tio Pepe restaurant.

Smith’s cousin, Afnik Williams-Hyde, had earlier testified against him, telling the court she saw two men wrestling on the ground near the Southampton Rangers Club that night, as she drove by in her car.

She saw a woman shouting for help before she assisted — recognising Smith in the process — urging him to “let the man go,” but he told her it was Mr. Connelly who was holding him.

Mr. Connelly told the court that while walking past the Southampton Rangers Club, he focused on a party that was taking place “in some sort of playing field.” From then, he told the court: “We continued walking (easterly) for a short period of time, then we were attacked.

“I heard running footsteps coming from behind and my wife screamed ‘lookout’ and then I was struck from behind.

“I was struck with great force and knocked to the ground and my hat and glasses were knocked from my head and face.

“The next thing I did was to grab onto the legs of the person who knocked me to the ground — I was on my stomach and his feet were near my body.

“It also felt like someone hit me very severely in the back of my head with a rock but I didn’t see any weapon. My nose was bleeding after he kept hitting me on my head.”

Mr. Connelly further claimed that during the struggle with his attacker, Smith had him pinned to the ground — trying to remove his leather wallet from his rear left pants pocket.

“It took him a few minutes to yank my wallet out of my back pocket and when he removed it from me I yelled to my wife that he had my wallet, several times.

“At some point after that, I felt the pressure he had on me remove and once I got up, he was gone. I never saw his face, I still didn’t have my glasses, I just felt his neck and hair.

“I saw my wallet again after my wife handed it to me and I looked inside and noticed that everything else was intact, except $83 in American currency,” he told the jury.

The jury was shown pictures taken by Police three days following the incident, which showed scrapes and bruises on Mr. Connelly’s body. His wife, Rachel Connelly, 50, who testified to witnessing the incident, recalled how she jumped onto Smith’s back, trying to pull him off her husband, while frantically screaming for help.

She told the court: “While walking past the soccer field, I saw someone running toward us, running quickly across the road and the next thing that happened is he jumped on my husband and they fell to the ground.

“I was screaming for help but there was no one around and no cars. When I tried to pull him (Smith) off of him, he threw me off him and I landed on the ground quite hard.”

Under cross-examination, defence lawyer Charles Richardson suggested to Mr. Connelly that he was never attacked but merely collided with someone, since both Mr. Connelly and his wife agreed that the area was poorly lit.

Mr. Richardson refuted Mr. Connelly’s assertion that since he was wearing cargo pants with small pockets and his wallet was very thick, it took Smith some effort to remove it. He suggested that Mr. Connelly’s pants pockets were much larger than he admitted.

“You was collided with and you thought you was tackled,” contended Mr. Richardson. “No,” replied Mr. Connelly.

Mr. Richardson further argued that it was Mr. Connelly who immediately latched onto Smith’s leg when they both fell to the ground after “colliding”.

Mr. Richardson suggested after the two fell to the ground, it was the accuser who instantly grabbed onto his client, despite his admission in court that the issue of the wallet had not arisen yet.

He suggested to Mr. Connelly: “When you fell to the ground, the individual did not have hold of you, correct?” But Mr. Connelly denied this.

Additionally, Mr. Connelly conceded to never have witnessed Smith actually touch or remove cash from his wallet and said he was unsure where it was recovered from.

He agreed with Mr. Richardson’s submission that he could not be sure that the person he was struggling with on the ground was the person that removed his wallet.

Doubt was cast on the evidence given by Mrs. Connelly, when she denied that a young, white man had appeared on a motorcycle and began to kick at the men as stated earlier by Mrs. Williams-Hyde.

Mr. Richardson implied that Mrs. Connelly actually had very little memory of the purported attack and suggested her testimony was not reliable.

The trial continues.