A carer made a racist comment to a ballet student outside an Oban nightclub.
Adele MacIntyre, 20, compared teenager Joia Raychoudhury to a monkey, a trial at Oban Sheriff Court heard yesterday.
The incident took place in the early hours of the morning in George Street on January 15.
Miss Raychoudhury, a bar associate at Wetherspoons, said: “I was out with my friends from Ballet West.
“I heard Adele talking about me to my friends. I said, ‘if you can say it to them say it to my face,’.
“She continued to verbally abuse me. I remember her calling me a monkey. Obviously I took it as a racial comment. I’m mixed race. It sounded offensive. I just remember feeling very offended an hurt.”
MacIntyre, of Lorn Road, Dunbeg, denied making the comment. She said Miss Raychoudhury must be making it up because they “don’t get on.”
She said they exchanged general insults, adding: “I would never be racist towards somebody. I don’t agree with racism.”
Rhys Cook, 20, who was standing nearby during the incident, gave evidence.
He said he intervened at the point of the racist comment, adding: “I only heard anything bad coming from Adele.
“I said, ‘you can’t say that,’. To refer to anyone of mixed race as a monkey is totally against everything I believe in.
“I was shocked, I had never heard anything like it.”
He continued: “She (Joia) was crying and saying that it was 2017 and stuff like this shouldn’t be happening. I was agreeing with her.”
Finding MacIntyre guilty of uttering a racist remark to Miss Raychoudhury, Sheriff Ruth Anderson said: “I think she needs some consciousness raising. This should be totally against everything that anybody believes in. As Miss Raychoudhury said, it is 2017, stuff like this shouldn’t be happening.”
Solicitor Jane McLaren said that MacIntyre had handed in her notice and it was unlikely she would work in care again.
Sentence was deferred to June 21.
