Worker beaten after breaking up dispute

A 26-year-old ma­chine op­er­a­tor was beat­en un­con­scious af­ter at­tempt­ing to break up a fight be­tween two co-work­ers out­side Sun­shine Snacks in Barataria.

Po­lice said the in­ci­dent un­fold­ed around 3.30 pm on Bhagoutie Trace while the man was on his lunch break. He in­ter­vened in an ar­gu­ment be­tween two co-work­ers over a woman.

One of the men left and re­turned short­ly af­ter in a blue Nis­san Almera with three oth­ers.

The vic­tim was then at­tacked by two of the men, in­clud­ing his co-work­er, with a met­al base­ball bat and knocked un­con­scious.

He was tak­en to hos­pi­tal, treat­ed and lat­er dis­charged.

Po­lice ar­rest­ed one sus­pect, a 23-year-old man from Champs Fleurs, who was al­ready at the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors are con­tin­u­ing en­quiries and have re­quest­ed CCTV footage.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions via email on Tues­day, Michelle De Leon-Thomas, Head of Hu­man Re­sources at As­so­ci­at­ed Brands In­dus­tries Ltd, said the com­pa­ny was aware of the in­ci­dent but main­tained it did not oc­cur on its com­pound.

“We are aware of an in­ci­dent that has been re­port­ed.

“Our un­der­stand­ing is that the mat­ter oc­curred out­side of our com­pound and is cur­rent­ly un­der ac­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the po­lice.”

She di­rect­ed fur­ther en­quiries to po­lice as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue.