Talk-show host 'Skippy' suspended

Radio talk-show host Barrington "Skippy" Thomas has been suspended after a now-deleted Facebook post involving the Prime Minister.

Thomas returned to Facebook just after 2 pm on Thursday to announce this development. He wrote: "For the attention of all interested, I have been suspended indefinitely from Power102.1FM," A UNC member and former election candidate, Thomas worked at the radio station hosting a daily programme from 3-6 pm.

In the deleted Facebook post, which was screenshotted and shared on social media, Thomas posted a photograph of a child on a music truck with the PM standing in the road behind her, smiling for the camera. In the post, Thomas said he found the picture “uncomfortable.”

In the comments on the deleted post, the child’s mother asked Barrington to remove it, as he did not have her permission to use the photo. She even tagged Police Commissioner Gary Griffith in her request. But instead of removing the post at the time, Thomas replied: “Keep her home not in the public flirting for adult men.”

Later, in an emotional 11-minute video response, the mother said her daughter was made a “national spectacle” by Thomas’s post. She added that Thomas’s response “crossed the line.”

After deleting the first post, Thomas posted: “I am not taking any responsibility for anybody nasty thoughts. All I simply mean is that it it uncomfortable for me to see Rowley posing for pictures with children. After cutting their school feeding, taking away their laptops, not opening the children hospital for them, closing the homework centre in Movant, Garth Christopher opened for them;

"Cutting GATE, leaving no hope for their future, not assisting them with the Children Life Fund, taking away social support from the children with cerebral palsy, not paying the school buses to transport them and taking away their parents food card, calling them duncy head and hyenas. Twist it however allyuh want . That is what I mean and I stand by it.”

Both the PNM and the Children's Authority condemned Thomas's post.