Take me to court – PM’s female accuser

Miranda Wood, the woman who made allegations that Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves behaved inappropriately towards her 32 years ago, says that she would like the Prime Minister to take legal action against her, during which they should both take lie detector tests.

“I know I’m not lying on Mr Gonsalves. It happened when he was a lawyer. {{more}}I was 15 years old,” said Wood on Hot 97.1 FM’s “AM Mayhem” programme, during a telephone interview with Chris “2 Cool” Jones and Alex “Kubiyashi” Barnwell.

Wood stated that the alleged incident happened at Gonsalves’ law chambers, where she had gone to seek sponsorship as a member of the national netball team.

The New York resident, who is now 47, said she was familiar with Gonsalves, as he was a regular visitor to her grandmother’s home, where he would sometimes go to eat.

Wood made the allegation of improper conduct during the question and answer segment of a town hall meeting held at the Friends of Crown Heights Centre in Brooklyn, New York on Saturday, September 24.

After Wood’s shocking declaration, some questioned the authenticity of her claim, particularly after a photograph was circulated on social media, showing her greeting Gonsalves with a smile and a hug at a 2015 town hall meeting at the same venue.

Explaining that encounter, Wood said after last year’s meeting, Gonsalves approached her.

“…when he came off the podium he have the nerve to coming in my ear and telling me ‘girl you look good; when you coming home we have to go hang out,’ she claimed he said then.

At the meeting two weeks ago, Gonsalves, in response to a question from Wood said he wasn’t sure if he remembered her.

“How all of a sudden Saturday he ain’t remember me?” asked Wood.

The former netballer said she does not need anyone to corroborate her story, because it happened to her.

“When it happened, I told my mother, don’t get it twisted,” said Wood, who added that she did not tell her father John Wood, but should have.

“If I had told John Wood, it would have been a different story,” said the upset woman.

Wood said that she did not make a report to the police because in those days persons did not take those types of interactions seriously and persons would have played it off.

She claimed she ran out of the office and told the secretary what had happened and never got back the sponsor sheet.

Reiterating that she was being truthful, she said her mother, to whom she had related her story, died two years ago.

Wood, however, refused to disclose what the next step would be.

She said after her declaration at the meeting, she was calm, although a number of persons threatened and attempted to belittle her, instead of rallying around her and showing support.

She said that after she left the meeting, she went home and opened a bottle of Hennessy and drank as she felt as if a burden had been lifted off her shoulders.

Wood said a number of lawyers in New York are going to work with her on the case, even though the act is alleged to have happened in SVG.

She asserted that no one put her up to doing what she did and she did it because she wanted her story to come out and for other women to be brave enough to do the same.

Gonsalves has denied Wood’s allegation. (LC)