Supreme Court jurors charged with delivering a verdict in an assault case have been told to not shy away from the issue of race during deliberations.

Construction worker Keith Neville Bean's lawyer Delroy Duncan made the plea during his summing up yesterday. His 34-year-old client is charged with wounding his foreman, Michael Carey, with intent to do grievous bodily harm on a barge at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club in Hamilton, where they were building a pier on June 28, 1999.

It is alleged that Bean, of Somerset Road, Sandys, fractured Carey's skull when he threw a heavy metal shackle at him after an argument developed when Bean tried to throw a rope to Carey.

Moments earlier Bean had punched Carey and then the two had wrestled. Bean, who is black, claims he was provoked after racial taunts from Carey, who is white.

Puisne Judge Vincent Meerabux adjourned the case yesterday morning after Mr.

Duncan and Crown counsel Patrick Doherty had completed summing up and said he would begin his summation Monday morning, before sending the jury out.

Mr. Duncan asked the jury not to shy away from the issue of race as it was at the centre of the case.

He told the jury, which contains just one white person: "This case is about how you feel.

"The law provides that certain words are offensive and insulting. Think about how you feel...'' Mr. Duncan said Bean was held with his head close to the water by Carey who was well aware of Bean's aversion to water as he could not swim.

The law, said Mr. Duncan, allowed for defence of provocation if it could be proved that the defendant was induced to lose self control, had acted before passions had time to cool and they had not intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm.

And Mr. Duncan said witnesses who said they had not heard the racial insults "probably didn't want to hear them or were too embarrassed''.

He added that claims Bean should have reported the alleged continued racial abuse he was subjected to were unrealistic.

Mr. Doherty said people had to be tried according to law rather than emotion.

He questioned how Carey could be said to be trying to push Bean in the water when the two were on the ground wrestling.

The prosecutor said Bean first admitted throwing the steel shackle at Carey's head then later claimed he had not aimed it.

"It fractured his skull. He was hospitalised for this with bleeding inside his head. It takes a significant amount of force to crack somebody's skull.

And he said Bean had changed his tune on what form the racial insults took.

Mr. Doherty said: "It's an indication the witness is not reliable. If you are provoked to anger, can you go as far as to crack somebody's skull?'' He told the jury: "This defence is not just limited to race. Can you have your children ending up in the intensive care unit because of a poor choice of words? Your verdict will have consequences. Is that the type of society you want to live in?'' He said the emergency unit would be overflowing if such behaviour was condoned and noted the law did not allow the defence of provocation if the defendant had done something likely to cause grievous bodily harm because they had been insulted.

And he said the retaliation was disproportionate to the insult and that the Old Testament law of an eye for an eye was not the way forward.

Instead he urged those faced with racial taunts to follow Dr. Martin Luther King's non-violent lead.

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