A cellphone that Denvalyn Minott began to use, following the 2020 murder of Tonia McDonald, secretly recorded around 120 telephone conversations between himself and Tonia’s husband, Everton ”Beachy Stout” McDonald, who was charged for her killing. Minott told the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston on Wednesday that he went into the settings on the phone and selected an option that activated call recording after numerous failed attempts to collect the $3 million he said he was promised by the Portland businessman, Beachy Stout, for the murder of Tonia. “I did not receive the $3-million payment. I didn’t receive any money at all,” Minott, the second witness in the murder trial of Beachy Stout and his co-accused Oscar Barnes, said in his testimony. Minott pointed out that Beachy Stout made him an offer whilst he insisted and convinced him to kill Tonia, despite him telling the businessman that he did not know how to do those things. “I felt depressed because he said, ‘nuh let me down’,” he said. Beachy Stout’s wife Tonia was killed on July 20, 2020 in Sherwood Forest, Portland. Her body and her car were burned after she was stabbed multiple times and her throat slashed. Beachy Stout allegedly contracted Minott to kill Tonia, who he accused of cheating on him with a policeman and other men. Meanwhile, in a shocking revelation in court on Wednesday, Minott claimed he had a sexual relationship with Tonia McDonald. “The relationship was intimate. She used to give him trouble with me. I was part of her life, like relationship and having sex with her. It ended because she is dead,” Minott claimed. Apart from suspecting that his wife was cheating, the witness said Beachy Stout also accused her of stealing over $30 million from him. Minott said he agreed to kill Tonia after Beachy Stout offered him $3 million to do the job. Without any down payment or deposit from Beachy Stout, Minott said he contracted Barnes to kill Tonia because he himself didn’t have the skills or knowledge to stab her and cut her throat as was the alleged wish of her husband. Minott pleaded guilty for being the contractor in the murder and was sentenced to more than 19 years in prison. He later agreed to become Crown witness and decided to give testimony against Beachy Stout and Barnes. Minott claimed that after Barnes, the alleged killer, completed the job he began to press him about the payment he was to get for carrying out the murder. “After the killing, I saw Mr Barnes again, in the last week of July. I left my house with my wife and one of my sons on a Tuesday morning at 9 o’clock. I asked a taxi man to bring my wife to Kingston to work. I reached Annotto Bay and asked the taxi man to stop so I could go and see Mr Barnes, but he wasn’t there beside the Chinese supermarket,” Minott said, in reference to the business establishment that is beside an alley where he said he met up with Barnes on numerous occasions. “I turned away and went back in the car. I then headed to Kingston. I saw Mr Barnes that evening about 3:00 pm at the Chinese supermarket. He asked if it was the money I brought for him and I told him no. I told him that I talked to Beachy Stout. Barnes asked how long it would take to get it. I told him we would meet in the town. I walked away. I spoke to him again one Wednesday in Port Antonio. “I met him at a taxi stand and I took him on William Street for him to get the money. I took him to a bar and told him to wait while I get the money for him. I headed to Beachy Stout supermarket on William Street and I didn’t see him but I spoke to the security. I turned back and go back to Barnes and said that the boss was busy right now and we have to check him back. Mr Barnes said, ‘You have me a do things I am not supposed to do. Mi want the money’ and he just walked away with vexation on his face. I didn’t meet with him again.” The witness went on to tell the court that he saved phone conversations between himself and Beachy Stout under the name Vybz Kartel, in the event someone found the phone and the memory card. He assumed that anyone who found it would think it was music on the chip. According to Minott, he handed the phone over to the police when they came and searched his house then arrested him in August 2020. “At 5 o’clock the Monday morning, I was inside my house with one of my sons when I heard someone playing with the door lock. I got up and went to the window, drew the curtain and peep outside, but I didn’t see anything. I went to my room and then I heard the front door playing with again. I go in my son room to look and he was still in his bed. I came back in my room and took up the machete and went to the door and asked ‘a who dat?’ “The person said ‘police!’ ‘Bubbla, open the door’. I asked them to come to the window so I can prove that it was police. Two of them came to the window with an envelope that stated search warrant. I opened the door and the police came in and took up a bag with some receipt. They took my ID and US$650, 000 in bogus money. The police handcuffed me, locked up the house and took me and my son to Kingston.”

Denvalyn Minott, the man who pleaded guilty to being the contractor in the 2020 murder of Tonia McDonald in Portland, testified in the Home Circuit Court, downtown, Kingston on Tuesday that her husband, Everton ‘Beachy Stout’ McDonald wanted him to murder a policeman who his wife was allegedly having a romantic affair with. Beachy Stout, a popular Portland businessman, and co-accused Oscar Barnes, are being tried for the July 20, 2020 killing of Tonia, whose throat was slashed and who was stabbed multiple times. Her partially burned body was found beside her razed motor vehicle on the Sherwood Forest main road in Portland. READ: READ: Wife of businessman ‘Beachy Stout’ killed in Portland Minott, who is now Crown witness in the case against Beachy Stout and Barnes, previously confessed to being the person who was contracted to kill Tonia and was subsequently sentenced to 19 and a half years in prison. According to Minott, Beachy Stout called him on The phone one Sunday and instructed him to accompany Tonia to her mother’s house in St Mary, but according to the witness, plans eventually changed and so too did the destination. “Beachy Stout called my phone and said Mrs Mac a go down a her mother and he wanted me to go down there with her. He told me that she lived in St Mary. He said to me that him talk to Mrs Mac already. Mrs Mac called me on the phone afterwards and I met her down on the main road when you get off Ranch Hill. “She was driving a white Toyota Axio. I sat in the front seat beside her. I didn’t reach St Mary with her. I came out of the car at Buff Bay. I went inside a housing scheme and went to find a house. It was Beachy Stout’s house, but I didn’t find the house. I came back out on the road and went back in the car out on the main road. She then turned the car and went to the Buff Bay Police Station. She spoke to a brown-looking Indian policeman. While she spoke to him, I was sitting in the car. After she finished talking to the policeman, she turned around the car and headed back to Port Antonio. I came out of the car in the town and called Beachy Stout but didn’t get an answer,” Minott told the Court. Minott added that Beachy Stout returned his call moments later and asked me, ‘If mi see him’. I told him yes and him seh, a di next somebody that him want me to kill. “I saw and spoke to Beachy Stout after that occasion. I saw him the following day in the supermarket. I went to the supermarket because Mr Beachy Stout said to check him. We spoke about Tonia. He said he wanted her dead because she take his money and give to the police bwoy. I asked him where the policeman lived and he took me in his black BMW and took me to the policeman yard in the Anchovy housing scheme in Port Antonio, Portland. We stopped at the gate and he showed me,” the witness claimed. He added that while on their way back from the location, Beachy Stout quizzed him to find out when he would be able to murder Tonia, who was the first person that he wanted Minott to kill. The businessman allegedly promised to give Minott $3 million if he murdered Tonia. READ: Beachy Stout’s wife cried out for mother while being killed, ‘hitman’ claims “He wanted to know when I was going to finish the work. I told him that as soon as I can get through with everything. I didn’t carry out the job [to kill the policeman],” Minott told the Court, before beginning to explain that he did, however, accomplish the mission to have Tonia killed and said he sub-contracted the work to Oscar Barnes, who stabbed her to death before setting her and her car on fire. READ: Witness, co-accused tried four times to kill Tonia McDonald The trial continues Wednesday, when Minott is expected to face a tough cross-examination by the defence attorneys representing both accused.

The Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) has launched a manhunt for a former member of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) who is accused of raping his girlfriend’s daughter for the past four years, starting when she was only 12 years old. Jamaica Observer sources say the mother was interviewed at the police Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (CISOCA) on Tuesday after the matter was reported by the child who is now 16 years old. According to Observer sources, the ex-soldier started raping the child while he slept at her mother’s house in the Red Hills area of St Andrew. The sources say the victim’s older sister was often on the bed while the ex-soldier abused her but that sibling was sworn to secrecy. “The older sister would beat the younger one whenever she complained about being raped as the ex-soldier was providing financial support for the family,” said one Observer source. “The mother also claimed that she did not want to report the matter as she did not want him to lose his job,” added the source. According to the source, the case could be made public today (Wednesday) as the police could seek help to find the ex-soldier. “Investigators are considering laying charges against the mother and the older daughter as they were well aware that the 12-year-old was being raped. “The JDF has said it cannot help to find him as he is no longer a member of the army so it is up to us to find him,” added the source. Efforts to get an official comment from the JCF were unsuccessful on Tuesday. Senior Superintendent of Police Maldria Jones-Williams, the head of CISOCA, declined to comment, while Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey, who is overseas, said he was not aware of the case. In July CISOCA renewed its call for parents and guardians to be careful when choosing caregivers for their children. CISOCA, in a release, said, with many children at home because of the summer holidays, local authorities usually witness a surge in incidents of abuse because children, left under the care of neighbours or family members, often fall prey to these custodians. The release reported Jones-Williams as saying the advent of technology further compounds the worrying trend, with unsupervised screen time exposing children to online predators. She said in light of these concerns law enforcers were encouraging parents to be alert and also careful when choosing caregivers for their children. Jones-Williams also called for open dialogue between parents and their children about the repercussions of indiscriminate sexual encounters, such as unexpected pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and the emotional trauma associated with these experiences.

The Government has granted a 35 per cent fare increase to public transport operators. This is to be done in two phases — 19 per cent effective Sunday, October 15, 2023; and a further 16 per cent in April 2024. Making the disclosure in a statement to Parliament on Tuesday, Minister of Science, Energy, Telecommunications and Transport Daryl Vaz said the fare hike was granted in a bid to cushion the impact of increased operational costs being borne by public bus and taxi operators. He said the increase, which was approved by Cabinet, was arrived at through the subcommittee of the Public Transport Operators Steering Committee which was mandated to formulate a collaborative proposal for revising the current fare rates. “I am mindful that the challenges of our current economic climate affect every stratum of society, including those who have invested in the transportation industry. Hence, the subcommittee has meticulously integrated a multi-dimensional approach into crafting a fair and equitable fare adjustment proposal,” Vaz said. He said the staggered increase includes a portion of a 25 per cent raise that did not materialise when a fare hike was granted two years ago. “In 2021, they were granted 25 per cent [increase] for which they got the 15 per cent and were to get an additional 10 per cent which did not happen… So in essence, that 10 per cent that they didn’t get is a part of this staggered increase of the 19 and the 16 which is 35 [per cent],” he said, adding that the arrangement was done to allow for the finance and public service minister to take it into consideration ahead of the 2024/25 budget. Vaz said Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) and Montego Bay Metro passengers will continue to pay fares at the existing rate, as no increase has been granted to those two entities. He also noted that the rate for the elderly, the disabled, and children who use the JUTC and MoBay Metro will remain at 50 per cent of the adult fare. The minister said that the steering committee is also actively assessing various operational challenges with the collective aim of tackling the prevailing issues in the public transportation system. This, he said, includes the lamentable condition of the transportation infrastructure throughout the island, enforcement matters and the state of road markings and signage. “I am very serious about creating a public transportation system we can all be proud of. In my quest to partner with the public passenger vehicle (PPV) operators, the ministry, through the Transport Authority, is currently undertaking a PPV driver conductor platform,” he said, adding that 3,582 participants have registered to date and 45 have completed the programme. “It is my intention to ensure that the operators in the service are adequately trained in customer service, safety and other areas of core competences. In this way, I’m being deliberate about improving levels of service provided to Jamaica’s commuting public. The Transport Authority is also currently working to establish a PPV driver’s register,” he said. Vaz said he has instructed the Transport Authority to set up a PPV certification course, noting that “in a matter of a few weeks, no one will be able to go and get a PPV licence at the Island Traffic Authority without a certification, and that certification must come from the Transport Authority”.

DENVALYN Minott, the man who said he subcontracted Oscar Barnes to help him kill Tonia McDonald, who was the second wife of Portland businessman Everton “Beachy Stout” McDonald, said they made four failed attempts to kill her at her home in Dolphin Bay, Portland. Minott, a fisherman who said he did a little farming as well, is the second witness to take the stand in the murder trial of McDonald and Barnes in the Home Circuit Court in downtown, Kingston. Both are being tried for the July 20, 2020 killing of McDonald’s wife, Tonia. Her partially burnt body was found with the throat slashed and had multiple stab wounds. She was found beside her razed motor vehicle on the Sherwood Forest main road in Portland. Minott is currently serving a 19-and-a-half-year prison sentence for his role as the contractor in the killing. Minott pleaded guilty for his participation in the crime. “Mr Barnes and I went to Beachy Stout and Tonia’s home about four times. The first time we entered from the back of the yard. We took a taxi and asked the taxi man to wait on us. Me, the taxi man, and Mr Barnes came out of the car which was parked outside on the road. I went to the front of the house. I placed Mr Barnes beside a plant in the yard by the garage. The taxi man was standing beside Mr Barnes. “We were just waiting on Mrs Mac [Tonia] but she didn’t turn up. I was there from about 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm. I went back to Mr Barnes and said, ‘I don’t know how she nuh come home yet’. The taxi man said to just leave that alone because it was not going to work. I told him that it was something that had to be done.” On the second occasion, according to Minott in his testimony last week, they waited on Tonia but when she drove in, she arrived with the helper. He told the court that Tonia was spared on that occasion because the helper was there, and she had locked the grille shortly after Tonia went inside the house. The witness said a taxi man brought them to the location on the second occasion. “The third time, it was just Barnes and me alone. When I saw Mr Barnes we shook hands and I told him we would go back again in the night. He said he was ready. I went inside a Chinese supermarket and bought a flask of rum, two Boom energy drinks, and five Craven A. I gave them to Barnes and he said he was ready. We took a taxi, and it was only me, Mr Barnes, and the driver were in the car. We were in the yard waiting on Mrs Mac to come in. Mr Barnes asked about what time she was going to come in. Mrs Mac came about 10:00 pm. The helper came out of the house, opened the verandah grille, and Mrs Mac went in and locked it. I was talking to Mr Barnes and told him that I didn’t know how she just come and go een suh. He said maybe she suspected something. We left the house and walked until we got a taxi to take us into the town.” Minott said that on the fourth occasion when he arrived at the house, he had reason to believe that someone had spotted him and Barnes accessing the yard. “I told him that we have to do it tonight I told him that we had to kill Mrs Mac tonight. He said, ‘As long as you’re ready, I am ready.’ I told him that when we reach out there we had to reach at a time nobody nuh si wi. When we went into the yard, Mr Beachy Stout called me on the phone and told me to stand down. He then hung up the phone,” the witness said, explaining that McDonald expressed his desire for Minott to do the crime by himself, and not bring anybody in on the mission. According to the witness, McDonald called him and said, he didn’t “want any twosome and threesome – a me alone fi do it. I told him that it was me one out here. That was not the truth. I lied to him because he said I must not carry anyone in the yard”. Minott claimed that McDonald told him the murder could no longer take place at the yard because somebody had spotted him. He said he further lied to McDonald about who had accompanied him to the yard. The trial continues today.

Caught in a vortex of public disgust triggered by the disclosure of an unsanitary act by a vendor at Crab Circle in the capital city, the Kingston and Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) has partnered with HEART/NSTA Trust to train and certify vendors across the Corporate Area in proper food handling and preparation. According to Mayor of Kingston Senator Delroy Williams, the upcoming training exercise is expected to commence within another week or two, beginning with the Crab Circle vendors. “We are pursuing and finalising a partnership to have street food vendors properly trained. The programme [which] the HEART/NSTA Trust has proposed is the small food facility operations which will cover areas that would be critical in terms of food preparation and handling to the public, and they believe that it would enhance the professionalism and make food preparation for the public safe,” Williams said, following a meeting with HEART representatives at his office in downtown Kingston on Monday. Jamaicans reacted with outrage last week after wide circulation of a video showing a female vendor at Crab Circle defecating inside a stall in an area where food is prepared for public consumption. Health inspectors and the KSAMC immediately ordered the closure of the popular street-side eatery and carried out sanitisation work. Additionally, the health ministry instructed that portable toilets be installed and that vendors acquire food handler’s permits before the facility can be reopened. On Monday, Mayor Williams said the five-day-long training programme will also target food vendors in other areas across the municipality where street food is normally prepared. “There are some areas that evolved over many years — 30, 40, 50 years — and have created a brand for themselves. That would [include] Crab Circle [which] evolved over 20, 30, 40 years, and that area has become quite popular. Then there is the Harbour View roundabout that also evolved over many years; and there is the Red Hills Road jerk area; and there is also Molynes Road. So there are a number of these kinds of operations that exist in the city and would have evolved over many, many years,” he said. He explained that part of the training component will involve a practical aspect requiring the preparation of meals which will be assessed. The vendors will then be certified once they have successfully completed the assessment. “Then, from there on, it would have to be just monitoring,” he said. “We have discussed also with HEART Trust to have a continual programme, so it would not just be that they do this course and that’s it. They would have refresher courses where they will be asked to go in and do these different courses as they go along, which would enhance the operations,” he said. “So we will begin to impact and to lift the professionalism of these locations across the municipality, and I would say across Jamaica, because these kinds of operations span the entire country and we want them to be successful. We want the persons who are operating these spaces to continue to do good business and to employ and to create employment, but there are some things that must be done on the training side. We believe that training and certification is a key component of the way forward, and impacting behaviour and practice and norms and attitudes,” he added. Providing an update on Crab Circle, Williams said KSAMC’s Engineering Department is currently looking at the possibility of adding more wash basins and making other improvements in the space, noting that Crab Circle was equipped with wash basins and running water when it was renovated last year. “We are looking at that as we speak to see what is possible… it is street side vending and with street side vending there are limitations to the kinds of infrastructure that can be put in place. What we did in our last renovation was to lift the area to higher standards and we are now looking to see what further works can be done, what sort of work is possible in the space to see if we can even bring the standards higher there,” he said. The mayor further noted that the issue of a bathroom facility is something that the KSAMC’s engineers are still looking at, but are seeking to first see what other arrangements can be made. “There are some of the vendors who would have had their own private arrangement within the Fletcher’s Land community, and so we are looking into all of those and then we’ll make a decision after we have looked into all of [that]. We want to check to see whether or not the private arrangement that the vendors had, if those private arrangements are still functional, are still in place,” Williams said. The KSAMC, he said, will be speaking with the remaining vendors to see what can be put in place. As to when Crab Circle will be reopened, the mayor could not provide a definitive answer, but noted that “once training is done and the Public Health Department and ourselves are satisfied that the space is at levels and standards that it can be reopened, then we will take steps for that to happen”. The stalls at Crab Circle in Kingston were demolished ahead of the visit of then United States President Barack Obama in 2015. New stalls were erected after the visit. Last year, J Wray & Nephew Limited made a significant investment in rehabilitating the stalls under a memorandum of understanding signed with KSAMC which committed the company to the stall upgrades only. No sanitary facilities were, however, installed at the location.

They boldly take up residence in people’s homes, and are often seen lounging on furniture in the household. They raise their offspring in flower beds, and inevitably, steal food — they are feral (wild) cats and they have become a huge nuisance to householders and other stakeholders. According to managing director of Jamaica Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (JSPCA), Pamela Lawson, cats “are the single biggest problem Jamaicans are having right now, next to crime. “Right now, I consider cats the new rats…they are overrunning our resort towns; they are extremely capable and excellent hunters, so they have a huge and negative effect and impact on the environment because they’re hunters. They are decimating a lot of the smaller indigenous animals [and also] contaminating the beaches because [to them] it’s just one huge litter box,” she told the Jamaica Observer on Sunday. She said the cats are also a huge nuisance as they multiply at a dramatic rate, noting that one female cat with its offspring can produce hundreds of thousands of the animals in six years. Lawson strongly advises people not to feed stray cats, pointing out that “the more you feed them, the more they’re going to produce, because nutritionally, they’re able and capable to produce more offspring.” “I’m not saying you must mistreat them or starve them, but you have to be prepared for the impact. So when I get called, it’s because somebody has called me to say one cat came in, they started feeding them…inevitably, there’s a female in the bunch — if it’s even one or two cats — and before they know it…they have 12, 15, and I am not exaggerating,” she said. Lawson noted that people living in gated communities are complaining bitterly about the huge cat population, noting that all it takes is one or two residents to have a cat that’s not sterile and it just balloons or they move and leave the cats behind, which is very common. “So you will find a lot of communities now, gated communities which actually have traps. And I have some clients, every week you see them coming in with a cat or two in a trap. She stressed, however, that when people trap the cats, they should not take them to other locations and dump them, “because you’re creating a problem for somebody else. That’s not fair…It’s not fair to the animal. It’s not fair to the people”. She said she is aware that large resorts have dumped cats, but that nowadays many resorts are becoming more responsible about the cat problem. “They are doing the trap, spay, neuter and release, [then maintenance in feral colonies] which have feeding stations or defined cat cafes, which is an area where food is put every day, twice a day,” she said, noting that tourists are allowed to interact with the cats if they so desire. She noted that quite a few resorts now have these feral colonies — including Jewels Resort, Sandals, Couples Sans Souci — adding that the mechanism works and it keeps the cats healthier because they are dewormed and maintained. They also keep down the rodent population, and they are less likely to hunt, she added. Lawson said that above all else, she would prefer residents take the cats in to the JSPCA. “Just bring them in…We won’t turn you away because you’ve caught cats that are making your life a nightmare’ “, she said, noting that there are branches of the animal shelter in Kingston and St Andrew; Portmore, St Catherine; and Montego Bay, St James. Terrestrial biologist Damion Whyte also raised the issue of people releasing into the wild feral cats which have been wreaking havoc in their homes. “When they release it in the wild, the cat continues to do what cats do, which is being a predator. So, they will hunt a number of our wildlife [including] endemic snakes, birds and lizards, the Jamaican coney, and rat bats. They go in and they eat these stuff, and in some of these countries feral cats bring some of these animals to the brink of extinction. For example, I do work here where we have some special caves where we set up cameras and we monitor cats there, and we saw one cat catching between 10 to 15 rat bats throughout the night,” he said. He said feral cats have also become a danger to the Jamaican Iguana, which is on the brink of extinction, noting that there is an ongoing programme to trap cats to prevent them preying on these animals. Whyte said that while he will lend his box traps to people who reach out to him, and who don’t want to hurt the cats, he said the exercise can be difficult as cats are very good predators and are good at avoiding traps. “You have to be very smart,” he said. One such person who has turned to Whyte for help in trapping cats is a homeowner in upper St Andrew who said she has been dealing with the nuisance of stray cats for “quite a number of years”. She said she managed to catch one, with Whyte’s guidance, and took the animal into the JSPCA. “I have had, over the years, I don’t know how many litters of kittens born in the garden or a large plant pot on the upstairs balcony, in various places, and then those grow up considering this space their home,” she said, noting that the cats will go into other homes and also take up residence in open lots in the area. “I’ve had a long problem with them. Sometimes it’s worse than others, and when it is mating season, my goodness! My backyard seems to be a special hangout spot because we get all the noise of the tomcats and sometimes fights and so on,” she said. She noted when the cats stay outside, “it’s bad and not too bad”, but when they start going

ROSE HALL, St James — Three years ago members of the Miller family, with deep roots in Barrett Town, planned to make donations to two educational institutions within the community. However, the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic thwarted those plans and the family had to wait until they got the all -clear before they could pick up where they left off. On October 4, they finally got their wish. Sisters — Shelia Forte-Trammel, Dr Doreen Miller-Diagne, and Sandra Miller Hall — visited the John Rollins Success Primary and Infant School bearing gifts for that institution as well as for Barrett Town Primary and Infant School. It was their way of honouring their parents, Iris and Dudley Miller, who have a long history of giving back to the community. Over the years their parents’ efforts included a feeding programme for Barrett Town, along with providing students with lunch, uniforms and others items needed. “I said to myself we ought to recognise them, not just for ourselves but all the people they have touched,” said Forte-Trammel. She and her siblings have worked together to put a much-needed fence around the play field at the early childhood section of John Rollins Success. They also provided musical instruments to Barrett Town Primary. Forte-Trammel promised that their support will be on-going. They all live overseas but said they will be back to help other institutions in the community. Acting principal of John Rollins, Hervlyn Forbes Williams welcomed the gesture which she said will go a far way in assisting the institution’s younger charges. “It is one of the requirements of the Early Childhood Commission that infant playgrounds be enclosed for safety. It’s an overwhelming feeling and we are happy to see it happen,” Forbes Williams told the Jamaica Observer. She said the plan is to expand the playground over time. “We can accommodate other play items and that is why the area is going to be extended,” added Forbes Williams Meanwhile a grateful principal of Barrett Town Primary and Infant School, Anthony Murray anticipates that the keyboards, recorders, ukuleles and guitars donated will be a huge boost for its extra-curricular activities. “When the Miller family reached out to ask what department they can assist, it was easy for us to just say musical instruments because it is a part of our school development plan,” said Murray.

“FOR months and years” after Arthwell Alphonso Joseph was murdered in his Manchester home the face of his killer, Shevano Richards, haunted his widow. That became even harder to handle when she remembered how Richards swaggered through the house as if “he owned it”, after he shot Joseph to death and spat on him. Ten years later, following his conviction and sentence of life behind bars with eligibility for parole after 34 years and seven months, the still-grieving British national said her memories are stained with the horror of that September 9, 2013 night and its prime actor. “The night when he came in, he had this swagger. I just couldn’t get my head around it — how somebody could brutally murder someone and it was nothing…I couldn’t understand how this gentleman had just murdered my husband and he walked around my house like he owned it…I could never forget that feature, his mannerism, everything about him,” the wife, a British national of Jamaican descent, told the Jamaica Observer brokenly. She said her husband, who set foot in Jamaica for the first time in 2007, had stubbornly fallen in love with the tropical island and could not be convinced to leave, resulting in their decision to make their retirement home in Manchester. She said it wasn’t long before they got a taste of the other side of life on the island. “They robbed us in 2012, but my husband fought off the robbers. A year to the day they came back and murdered him,” she said. According to the wife, a feeling of unease that she could not shake dogged her shortly before the events of that night unfolded. “I told my husband: ‘Phonso, something bad is going to happen to us’ but I could never imagine it was going to be that. The night of the incident the driver dropped home Alphonso. He came into the room to me and we discussed what had happened throughout the workday, and then he went to the living room to listen some music and wind down. “While I was in the room I heard, ‘Weh di money deh’ so I called out, ‘Who is that?’ I hear fighting, I hear cups breaking, things turning over. He says: ‘Call the police…’ then I heard bow, bow — two explosions,” she told the Sunday Observer, her face crumpling, her voice heavy with tears. That’s when she said Richards charged towards her bedroom door demanding of her, “Lady, weh di money deh?” “I said, ‘You can go anywhere in this house and anywhere you see money, you can take it but I am going to see what happened to my husband….’ Throughout the whole process I was calm and collected until I kneeled beside my husband, and that’s when I screamed,” she told the Sunday Observer. “I knew he was gone because his eyes were open but they were just glazed over, no movement, no nothing. I knew he wasn’t alive,” she said almost on a whimper. Still determined to get help for her husband she said she headed for an outside door, only to be stopped by Richards who had by then completely discarded his mask. “He stood up in front of me. He said, ‘Lady, weh yuh a go?’ I said, ‘I am going to get help for my husband, and you can kill me.’ And I turned my back and walked,” she related. Her screams of alarm brought the community running and then the police some time later, she recalled. She said in 2015 the call she had prayed for came: Richards had been collared. According to the police, during the investigations into the shooting deaths of two brothers — Oshane Levy, 21, and 27-year-old Anthony Bailey — off Highway Drive, Greenvale, in May 2015, an acquaintance, upon learning that Richards had been taken into custody for those murders, told the police about his boast that he had been the one who had killed Joseph. Richards reportedly bragged that he got money “to kill a man in Manchester”, and even took the individual to the house where Joseph and his wife had lived. “He described me [to his acquaintance] to a detail; he described my husband. They knew inside our house, exactly what the house looked like. I’d never seen him in my life [until that night],” the widow told the Sunday Observer. An identification parade brought her face to face again with the man who had killed her husband, whom his wife described as “an exceptional man, very exceptional who was dearly loved”. “When they let the prisoners in, I walked along…when I saw him my heart dropped. My heart dropped. I could not forget that face because he walked through my house and presented himself in front of me without his mask, like he was showing off, like ‘Look at me’ and that’s what troubled me for years — the cold, callousness of his behaviour,” she stated. “I asked the accused to step forward. I remembered his face, I remembered his profile, and I identified him because for months and years his face haunted me,” she said softly. Such was his disposition that the widow said he totally eclipsed his accomplice. “I did a second ID parade but I could not remember the second one’s face; but the one who pulled the trigger, he came up in my face,” she told the Sunday Observer. When the trial began in May this year Joseph returned to the island, anxious to see the justice she had fought tooth and nail for dispensed. “I would not let it go; my family feared for me. When I was leaving [for Jamaica] there was just a peace over me; I didn’t fear. The British Home Office said: ‘Mrs Joseph, you are not going to get security.’ Nobody came with me, nobody wanted to come. They said I should not come. I had my mom in tears for weeks, thinking that they were going to

MONTEGO BAY, St James — Claiming she was forced to resign after 15 years due to health issues, a former National Commercial Bank (NCB) insurance advisor is appealing to meet with the bank’s Executive Chairman Michael Lee-Chin. The 57-year-old former worker, who asked not to be named, told the Jamaica Observer that her plight started in 2019 and would last until July 2022 when she eventually took early retirement from the bank. She explained that while at work one morning, she felt “a heavy pulling in my head that had me crouching”. Taking the advice to have her blood pressure checked, the former worker said she immediately went to the doctor where she was told that her blood pressure “was through the roof”. She was subsequently told that an MRI was needed, which showed several tumours on her brain, the former insurance advisor told the Sunday Observer. “I found Dr Carl Bruce who told me I needed brain surgery quickly. I had the procedure, and the largest tumour on the right was removed. Coming up to three months after the first surgery [I] needed a second surgery to remove a tumour on the left side. Dr Bruce had to remove two tumours so three were removed in all. The frontal lobe had a tumour,” she said. Pointing out that the frontal lobe controls an individual’s emotions, the woman stated that her recovery from surgery caused major emotional stress. “There are adjustments after major surgeries — post-traumatic stress disorder, the frontal lobe controls the emotions so simple utterances would disturb me, light sensitivity in the left eye so I could not drive,” she said. The former insurance advisor said that she was eventually placed on six months’ sick leave but would still interact with clients and refer business to the bank. After returning to work she told the Sunday Observer that she enquired about medical redundancy, however, she did not qualify. Her next move, the former NCB worker said, was to request that she be removed from front line duties as the emotional stress coupled with the novel coronavirus pandemic were proving to be too much. “I wrote a letter asking to be transferred from the insurance sales team but nothing came of it. I sent other emails, called senior management, and applied for a post — but to no avail. I submitted a medical letter from Dr Bruce but, to no avail. Staff saw my distress, crying, walking the road, pulling away, but no change came,” she bemoaned. The former insurance advisor explained that she would become distressed whenever her customers were unhappy and would have to take walks to gather herself. That, she said, would eventually lead to her resignation. “Once the customer is unhappy, I am unhappy. Sometimes when I got emotional I would just leave the Half-Way-Tree branch, walk to Old Hope Road, and come back down. When I was at the UWI branch I did the same thing — I would just circle the Ring Road and come back in. I kept asking them to take me off the front line. I have never been called into a meeting to address my situation. It was just a hard time,” she told the Sunday Observer. The former NCB worker added, “I resigned because I couldn’t manage emotionally. The place was just not where it was. When I saw the mayhem around me I kept saying to management that things were not working out because the customers’ affairs were not where they were supposed to be.” “A very bigwig customer said that he was going to go on social media and nobody would want to do business with us when he is finished. I had to run around the block to get his affairs sorted out. I value customers, and once I see the customer I want to see what I can do for them. That is just how I am programmed,” she added. The woman said that life got extremely hard after walking away from her job. She fell on hard times, which forced her to sell her home and a car because she could no longer afford to keep them in her possession. In addition, she said that she has been finding it difficult to pay her monthly bills and has had her electricity disconnected on numerous occasions over the past year. Seeking a new job was also very hard, as the former NCB worker said that she has been turned down by many insurance companies. “I tried to find ways to earn an income but I was connected to the wrong people, and that started suicidal stress. I had to sell major assets to relieve a financial debacle as I could not service them,” she said. She added, “Plus, my medical history cannot be hidden. One recruiter asked me if NCB could not have put me somewhere else that is not as aggressive as sales. She even asked why she would employ an NCB person who went on early retirement.” The former worker said she is hoping to speak with Lee-Chin in the hope of becoming reinstated in another position at NCB. “I was told to repeat that ‘I’m a salesperson, not a service person’ so I find it most heart-rending to hear Mr Michael Lee-Chin lament about service, and that was what I was born to do. I would bring issues to management but no one listened. I was greeted by the former general manager as ‘Hi, complainer.’ Mr Lee-Chin, I need an audience with you,” she appealed.

LEODA Bradshaw, the mother of one of Phillip Paulwell’s children, is facing multiple charges in connection with the abduction and suspected murder of another of his intimate partners, 27-year-old Toshyna Patterson and her 10-month-old daughter Sarayah Paulwell, the police said on Friday. At the same time, widely reported claims that two burnt bodies were found in the Rockfort area of Kingston Friday afternoon have not been confirmed by the police up to press time. Bradshaw was taken into police custody late Thursday evening and on Friday, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Fitz Bailey confirmed that she was a prime suspect in the abduction of the two and would face charges. He said three men, believed to have been involved in the abduction of Patterson and her daughter, have also been taken into custody, but it is Paulwell’s long-time partner, Bradshaw, who works with a law enforcement agency in the United States, who Bailey was willing to name. “We think in the case of Ms Bradshaw we have evidence that we could advance a case at this time, but we want to ensure that we cross every ‘T’ and dot every ‘I’. And so, there are a number of things that are ongoing, and so we want to ensure that those have come to a conclusion before we proceed with the formal charging of her,” DCP Bailey said in a video release from the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). According to Bailey, the police are looking at charges of kidnapping, conspiracy to murder, and other charges against Bradshaw and the three men who are now in custody. “The evidence that we have is very strong, and we will allow the administrative procedures to be concluded before we make that determination as there are legal issues that basically prevent us from saying much more,” he said. “But I am convinced that we are on the right track; I’m convinced about the quality of evidence, about the potency of evidence. I’m convinced, when I look at the material, that the evidence we have garnered so far is very strong and can stand up to any scrutiny in any court of law,” added Bailey as he commended the JCF members who are conducting the investigation. Bradshaw first commented of the abduction of Patterson and little Sarayah on Sunday, September 10 in a media release and a subsequent interview with the Jamaica Observer in which she denied having anything to do with the disappearance of the two. “The only interaction I have ever had with Ms Patterson is through a brief Facebook exchange,” Bradshaw said in the statement. “I have never spoken to her by phone nor have I made any arrangements to meet with her. Any such reports in social media are lies and will be passed on to my lawyer for action to be taken in the days ahead. “I have shared all information I have with the authorities and I hope their investigation will lead to the safe return of Ms Patterson and her baby girl,” added Bradshaw. She later told the Observer that claims Patterson received a call from someone purporting to be her and saying they wanted to meet the baby should be investigated. “I have never spoken to this young lady, we have never met; how do you pick up yourself [and why] would you meet with a stranger you don’t know,” added Bradshaw as she noted that reports were that Patterson was picked up in a gold van by a male driver who was wearing dark shades. “Why did you mention my name…my information was not public knowledge,” added Bradshaw. In outlining the sequence of events surrounding Paulwell, the Member of Parliament for Kingston East and Port Royal who sits on the Opposition benches in the legislature, Bradshaw said in May their eight-year-old daughter was sent sexually explicit photos which were later followed by e-mail threats and extortion attempts. She said the matter was reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the Broward County Sheriff’s Department Internet Crimes Against Children in the US, which later reported the matter to the Jamaican authorities. “The threats against our child continued for months as the authorities investigated,” said Bradshaw. She added that on Sunday, September 3, an e-mail was sent out making threats that personal information on Paulwell would be released to the public. “They also made damning threats against our child,” said Bradshaw. According to Bradshaw, on Tuesday, September 5, she received an e-mail indicating that Patterson had a child with Paulwell. “I spoke to Phillip and he confirmed that he had a brief relationship with Ms Patterson and it is possible that the child was his, but he was not certain as a DNA test had not yet been done,” said Bradshaw. “This was the first time I was hearing about Ms Patterson and the child,” added Bradshaw. She said she sent Patterson a message on Facebook Messenger advising her that Paulwell had opened up to her about their involvement and the possibility that the child was his. “I advised her that Phillip and I would ensure the child is taken care of financially and a DNA test would be done to ensure that Phillip was the father of the child. “As can be seen from my exchanges with Ms Patterson, there was no anger, but just a genuine wish to see that an innocent child is taken care of and not caught up between two parents no longer in a relationship,” said Bradshaw. She added: “I will continue to work with the local and US authorities to get to the bottom of the threats against my family, in particular our young daughter. “I will continue to pray for the safe return of Ms Patterson and her baby and ask anyone with information to contact the police.”

Senator Aubyn Hill used his contribution to the 2023/2024 State of the Nation Debate in the Upper House on Friday to defend the Government’s stewardship of the country’s affairs over the past seven years, citing as evidence, among other things, Jamaica’s recently upgraded credit rating by Standard and Poor’s (S&P). “All-time low unemployment… national commendable effort… great job creation performance for Jamaicans in every single walk of life; those are just some of the words and phrases that have been used in describing the recent announcement by S&P of Jamaica’s best credit rating ever and by Statin (Statistical Institute of Jamaica) of a historically low unemployment figure of 4.5 per cent,” said Hill, the minister of industry, investment and commerce. On September 13, S&P upgraded the Government of Jamaica’s long-term foreign and local currency issuer default rating (IDR) from B+ to BB-, with a ‘Stable’ outlook. It is the highest credit rating ever given to Jamaica since S&P started rating the country’s sovereign debt in 1999. Hill argued that the upgrade by S&P cannot be overemphasised and must not be trivialised. “It is a major achievement for all Jamaicans, not just some; this is a significant and historic credit rating upgrade for every Jamaican,” he said. Explaining how Jamaica now benefits from this new rating, Hill said that the country can now access financing at costs lower than before, which will result in savings that can be used for other important undertakings. “We have a loan stock of J$1.1 trillion… about US$7.14 billion. Payments for this is not smooth; it is bumpy, but say we were to pay 10 per cent of that per year of the debt stock we have, that would be $714.3 million annually. When we pay, we tend to borrow it right back… So we borrow it back at one per cent less, because of the upgrade by Standard and Poor’s, your interest rate goes down. So when you borrow it back at one per cent less, you save US$7.14 million a year… Over 25 years, which is what you would normally pay back a loan over, you’re saving about US$178.5 million. That goes to build schools, it goes to buy police cars, it goes to pay part-payments, it goes, I hope, to make sure we get some more investments to businesspeople,” he said. Hill said an equally great measure as to how well the economy and the country are being run is the employment level. “The lowering of unemployment and the raising of the number of people in employment pulls into the earning economy many Jamaicans from the lower levels of our national labour force. This is good news for a vast number of Jamaicans who needed the work,” Hill said. He said that due to the “outstanding efforts” of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government, especially Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, employment has been increasing consistently month after month. “Jamaicans are seeing and feeling the benefits that the JLP Administration is creating in the new jobs and social services… The best gift a Government can give to a citizen is a job that they get paid every two weeks or every month, not a bonus but a job that you get a regular income and we have been providing a lot of those, in fact, 148,000 since 2020,” he said. Hill further said that the Andrew Holness-led Administration has fixed and built more police stations than almost any other Government in the country; exports, year on year are up 37 per cent; and gross domestic product continues to go down from 147 — when the People’s National Party (PNP) was in power — to 77 per cent. He said the JLP Administration has not borrowed any money in the local market and “have not raised one dollar of tax in seven years”, and claimed that four years before the JLP came to power, the PNP taxed Jamaicans $58 billion. “The prime minister has led his Cabinet to follow a very disciplined, intentional and targeted approach to the economic and social management [of] Jamaica,” he added.

Police investigating the disappearance of Phillip Paulwell’s daughter and her mother have taken one of his close female associates and two men into custody, the Jamaica Observer learnt late Thursday night. The suspects were arrested at separate St Andrew properties on Thursday and, according to police sources, will be charged with murder and kidnapping. The Jamaica Observer is withholding the name of the suspect until she is charged. Police sources have said that Paulwell, the Member of Parliament for Kingston Eastern and Port Royal, is not a suspect in the matter. On September 9 Paulwell had confirmed reports reaching the Observer that his 10-month-old daughter Sarayah Paulwell and her mother, 27-year-old Toshyna Patterson, were missing since September 8. Paulwell said the two were seemingly abducted from their home at Gilmore Drive, Kingston 20, on the morning of September 9 and have not been seen or heard from since. “This is scary and comes at a time when I have been threatened by scammers who have hacked my phone and banking data and are demanding money to release them,” Paulwell said at the time. “I have made it clear that I will not give in to extortionists, but this is a serious and dangerous development. The matter has been reported to the police and I have given a full statement. I have also increased my security measures,” he said. “I am worried sick over their safety and hope the police, who have launched a high-level investigation, will find the abductors and get them both home safe and sound,” added Paulwell.

SANDALS Corporate University (SCU) on Thursday announced a multimillion-US dollar project with EON Reality to provide cutting-edge spatial artificial intelligence (AI) technology to its more than 18,000 professionals. EON, a global leader in virtual and augmented reality (XR), blends AI and XR with the world’s most expansive learning library – housing over six million assets – and a code-free environment for content development. The advanced AI-based features of EON Reality’s suite of offerings will enable SCU to streamline the creation of customised training content, and the EON AI assistant will offer support, facilitating the creation, distribution and consumption of information. The partnership was made possible through an EON Reality grant to the tune of US$30,071,400, an in-kind co-investment from EON and a donation through EON Reality Learn for Life Foundation to cover the full cost of the EON-XR programme delivery. Speaking at the launch event at Sandals Royal Plantation in Ocho Rios, St Ann, SCU Senior Corporate Director Dr Luz Longsworth lauded the initiative as a futuristic moment that is transformative in relation to teaching and learning. “It is going to be one of those technologies that disrupt how we do things in our training,” Dr Longsworth said while allaying fears people might have in relation to AI. “We shouldn’t be worried about this technology, not when we are partnering with an organisation like EON. EON states in all its documentation that knowledge is a human right that should be available, accessible, and affordable for everyone on the planet. What we have been embarking on is a giant step.” A distinguishing feature of the technology is the use of spatial AI, equipped with a fully interactive avatar capable of perceiving and engaging with its surroundings. The AI-driven avatar can demonstrate, explain and teach various hospitality topics using XR demonstrations while also guiding and assisting users in real-world tasks and providing real-time feedback. EON Reality Co-founder and President Mats Johansson said the purpose of the partnership is to make virtual and augmented reality easy to create and share for the purpose of learning and achieving XR democratisation for education. “There’s been many attempts over a long time to implement XR education, there is a learning problem that we set out to solve. A lot of learning has gone online, as you know, and the students phase out after a few minutes. We’ve heard this over and over again. There’s lots of studies looking at high school learning with XR which can help students learn faster, become more confident, make more emotional connections – that’s a great driver for education – and become more focused,” Johansson said while emphasising that the programme is easily accessible and can be applied to any subject. Executive chairman of Sandals Resorts International Adam Stewart congratulated SCU on the groundbreaking partnership, while sharing that his late father Gordon “Butch” Stewart and Merrick Fray believed in learning from the beginning of the Sandals brand. “Merrick Fray realised, with my father’s support, the importance of what training could mean to creating a dream that they had. With what I would describe as very humble beginnings, learning became institutionalised in the Sandals organisation from the very early innings. Sandals is a Caribbean company from the Caribbean, of the Caribbean that is determined to show the world that what is from here can stand on the world stage, side by side the biggest and the best,” Stewart said. He added: “In this life that we live, we have a tendency to fall into the trap to believe that if it comes from somewhere else, wherever that somewhere else may be, it may be in fact better that what we have right here at home. My job has been, over the years, to effectively follow in the footsteps of what was always here. As they say, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Learning has always and will always be at the centre of what is the hallmark of Sandals and Beaches Resorts. One thing that will not change with all the changes taking place around us is that service is executed person to person, smile to smile, and to the degree to which we can crack that code of transferring knowledge to what is now thousands and thousands of Caribbean nationals.” Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett, who delivered the keynote address, hailed the SCU-EON XR platform as a milestone innovation that has the potential to dramatically reshape the education and training landscape in the tourism sector and other industries. “This is because its focus on the use of virtual, augmented, mixed, and extended reality will help to fundamentally transform the methods by which we acquire knowledge and engage in training. The SCU-EON XR Platform utilises these technologies to provide a comprehensive and immersive educational experience that contributes to securing the future of tourism. The process of engaging with knowledge via this platform will extend beyond just consumption and will encompass elements of truly value-added educational experience such as active interaction, immersion, creativity, imagination, and practical application,” he said. “In the current era characterised by rapid technological changes, endeavours such as the SCU-EON XR Platform will guarantee the sustained position of tourism as a global leader in education and training benchmarks. Thus, the goal is not to merely establish a platform; but more importantly, it is to herald the advent of a new paradigm in education transformation,” said Bartlett. – SEE RELATED STORY ON PAGE 7

JAMAICAN health authorities are pleading with members of the public to exercise patience when they visit emergency medical facilities as the triple threat of dengue fever, COVID-19, and the flu place additional stress on the system. Addressing a post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House on Wednesday, Minister of Health Dr Christopher Tufton pointed out that while COVID-19 is no longer a crisis, the positivity rate in Jamaica is above 10 per cent which is relatively high. He noted that dealing with people who test positive for COVID-19, plus the dengue fever outbreak and the start of the flu season will be a challenge for public emergency medical facilities. “In normal times we have overcrowding in our hospitals, particularly those in the urban centres… so when you have a spike in a particular area, there is almost automatically going to be a build-up,” said Tufton. “That triple threat is real, not a need for alarm but it is something to know and to be able to respond,” added Tufton minutes after Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie had used the post-Cabinet briefing to urge Jamaicans not to rush to emergency public health facilities for minor symptoms of dengue fever. “At this time we are not only seeing an overload from persons with viral illnesses, but this time of the year we tend to have more persons coming in with uncontrolled non-communicable diseases and the complications thereof. “We would have started to see the reports that we are experiencing overcrowding, especially in our emergency departments, and that is why the appeal that we also need to visit our primary care centres to take off some of that load,” said Bisasor-McKenzie. “I think that most hospitals, especially the type B, middle-level regional hospitals, tend to, at this time of the year, really go into facing a burden in terms of the number of persons who are coming in,” added Bisasor-McKenzie as she appealed to people visiting the emergency departments to be patient when awaiting treatment. The CMO pointed out that the island’s emergency departments usually have a good triage system which is a preliminary assessment of patients to determine the urgency of their need for treatment and the nature of treatment required. “We are able to pick up those persons who need attention right away, and so sometimes you will see people rush ahead of you, it is because we consider those to be more of an emergency. “So be patient with us in the emergency departments. This time of the year people tend to become very violent [and] aggressive. They go into the emergency departments, they see the overcrowding [and] the doctors, the nurses, all the people who work in the hospitals are also overwhelmed when they have these large crowds to deal with, and to deal with the aggression on top of it really, really place them in a very bad position,” added Bisasor-McKenzie. Her plea was echoed by Tufton who pointed out that the medical staff are well equipped to determine what cases are more serious and in need of urgent treatment. “The fact that you turn up at an emergency ward is not a guarantee that you will get through first. The accident and emergency wards do not…operate on a first come, first served basis. They operate on a severe case basis. “So it who is greatest in trauma, or most severely affected, or life is being threatened…You come there with a headache, yes, it’s an emergency for you…but it cannot, even if you [are] waiting three hours, you can’t replace somebody who comes with a heart attack or a stroke because there is a time there that could determine life or death,” said Tufton, as he underscored that people will have to wait in emergency wards as long as their needs is not immediately life threatening. “And you know it is a very emotional thing, because when a parent has a child in his or her arms and they [are] waiting for two hours and the child is miserable…crying…the natural response is to claim cruelty on the part of the institution that their child [is] bawling and they [are] not getting any attention. “But oftentimes, in the context of the institution, there may be another child in the room who has something stuck in his throat and him can’t breathe, or fall out of a mango tree and is haemorrhaging. Unfortunately, the crying child who may have a discomfort will have to cry until we sort out the child who has [a life-threatening condition],” added Tufton.

SUMMERFIELD, Clarendon – Jennifer Grey’s three children for Varrell Manning are now fatherless and she is wondering how they will ever move past his death. He was one of four men gunned down during an early morning attack on Wednesday in Summerfield, a usually quiet community near Chapelton in Clarendon. “I got a call from a neighbour early this morning to say that a shooting happened and my babyfather is there. When I got here I saw all of them lying in there. I know all of them very well and don’t know of them giving trouble. It was Karaoke Tuesday, so the DJ was there. I am very cut up because two of the three [children] just passed for high school so this will be very hard to get over,” Grey told the Jamaica Observer. According to the police, the incident took place about 1:15 am while the men were at a bar in the community. Also among the dead is Varrell’s brother, Theo; 44-year-old Kish Brown in whose shop the murders occurred, and a man so far only identified as “Rasta” or “Tumpa”. A video making the rounds provided a glimpse of the carnage that took place in the wee hours of the morning. One man, inelegantly sprawled on his back, one leg precariously caught on the base of a nearby bar stool had a large red stain near the armpit of his white sleeveless shirt. Next to him, also face up, another man with a blood stain high up on the left chest area of his black and white shirt. A few steps away, face down, yet another in a white sleeveless shirt, this time with two spots of blood to his back. The fourth man, clad in navy blue shorts and tan shirt, lay on his side. Already rattled by the vicious attack, the community then had their usual routine disrupted as investigators processed the scene as day broke on Wednesday. With a section of the main road leading in and out of the busy town cordoned off, scores of students were inconvenienced. Checks with school administrators at Clarendon College revealed that several students arrived late for classes and were visibly traumatised. Chapelton All-Age, St Paul’s Anglican Basic and St Robert’s Bellarmine Prep schools in Chapelton were all affected. So, too, were students of Edwin Allen High, though to a lesser extent. Member of Parliament for North Central Clarendon Robert Morgan sympathised with residents. “It’s a really sad situation; we are not used to this sort of criminality. To lose four constituents in one incident is very traumatic for the community. This is a community that the police will tell you we don’t have these sort of things happening on a regular basis. But we live in a society where people are becoming very heartless and very brazen and we just have to join together as a community and just support each other in this time of grief,” he said. Morgan said the incident will likely temporarily put a damper on activities within the community as well as residents’ livelihood. “People are very concerned and nervous because we don’t know what the motive was or who did it and we have not gotten much information from the police where the motive would be coming from,” he said, adding that while residents are worried they are nevertheless resilient. “The children are traumatised and the residents are concerned about their own safety and that of their children. The police have to do their work and as political representatives we have to play our role,” the MP added. He said there have been ongoing efforts to dissuade youngsters from a life of crime and while murders were down by 13 per cent he has been speaking with Minister of National Security Dr Horace Chang about how to address challenges being faced by police in the area. On Wednesday, acting Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Area Three Glenford Miller appealed to residents to provide any information that may help shed light on the killings. “This space is one of the quieter areas in northern Clarendon. It’s one of the areas that has not had any form of violence where crime is concerned. So when a situation like this takes place it actually shocks the entire community and we are looking to the entire community to come on-board and help us to solve this crime,” said the senior cop. He added that the Community Safety and Security Branch (CSSB) of the Jamaica Constabulary Force has already been activated and will be providing grief counselling for those immediately affected. For now, he and his team will be moving to curb the thriving nightlife within Summerfield which he said now “operates 24 hours” a day. They will start by reviewing the Noise Abatement Act, Miller noted. “There are cut-off times for all the establishments. So we are going to see how best we can do some educational campaigns and implore persons that once it is the cut-off time then it should be closed,” he added.

The parents of a two-month-old girl are now left with the heart-rending task of having to tell her, when she gets older, that her twin sister was the only member of the family who did not survive when their house collapsed. “As long as you’re a parent you will feel this [type of] hurt. I really sympathise with the family,” a policeman at the scene of the tragedy in Bowden Hill, St Andrew, said Tuesday morning. The Jamaica Observer was told that the twins, a sibling, and their parents were inside the house when it collapsed about 6:00 am. The now-deceased baby was trapped under rubble. Hours later, she was eventually located after more than 30 firefighters used all the equipment available to them to search for her beneath the pile of concrete and steel. One resident said she was shaken, especially due to the events leading up to when she learned of the tragedy. “I feel it to my heart! I woke up and was going to take my daughter to the doctor, because she said her heart was hurting her. I wanted to put on my clothes and it was a struggle. I heard the fire brigade and was wondering where it was going. It was when we came down in the car and reached [here] we saw what was happening,” the woman told the Observer. “I really, really feel it for the family. They said the babies were in an incubator after they were born two months ago. They just came home from hospital recently,” she added. One firefighter told the Observer that the search for the baby was very tedious. “One of the times we heard something like a baby, so we stopped searching and started to listen, but the sound went away and so we continued searching,” he said. “While the police didn’t play a role in the physical search, they played their part because we were overrun by the crowd. They kept the people out of the space while we worked,” the firefighter said, adding that residents assisted them during the process. The Observer learned that the mother of the children is an employee of Bowden Hill Primary and Infant School located in the area. Senior teacher at the school, Orlene Gordon-Dennie, who was among onlookers at the scene, said that her principal will have to put grief counselling measures in place for the students and staff as soon as possible. “For us, as teachers, we really could not function knowing that all of this was happening. We have students coming from this space so we just wanted to know they are okay. It is sad to know what happened. This will take a toll on our students. They are shaken up and asking what is happening, and if this can happen again,” she said. She claimed that the house collapsed because of the earthquake two weeks ago, coupled with heavy rains over recent weeks which saturated the soil. The tragedy, meanwhile, has given rise to questions about current building practices in Jamaica, particularly in Kingston and St Andrew. Officials, including Mayor of Kingston Delroy Williams, who visited the scene said that the soil appeared to have failed to hold the structure up and reminded that all building constructions, whether private or commercial, must receive the proper approvals to protect the lives of citizens. “This is indeed tragic. It seems as if the soil failed. We have been having heavy rainfall and the soil is obviously saturated. We always urge people to tender their applications for approval whenever they are constructing. You will be guided by the engineering department of the municipality, and the process we go through is rigid to make sure our buildings are sustainable,” Williams said. Xavier Chevannes, city engineer at Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation, said he noticed that the house had improper reinforcement, and porous concrete helped to compromise the building. Firefighters from Stony Hill, Half-Way-Tree and York Park stations were involved in the search. Patrick Gordon, senior superintendent in the Kingston and St Andrew division of the Jamaica Fire Brigade, said the call alerting them to the incident came in at 6:23 am, and firefighters were immediately mobilised. “The terrain was challenging. There are heavy boulders, as you would have seen, but we used the relevant equipment to breach the area. I must thank the residents who assisted. This is a tragic loss, very emotional. No parent would want to experience this kind of situation,” he said.

With the curtains coming down on the Klansman gang trial — the longest running matter of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean to date — Jamaica’s chief prosecutor Paula Llewellyn, King’s Counsel, in expressing relief, says several prime recommendations will be made for amendments to the sentences under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) Act, commonly known as the anti-gang law, to increase the penalties significantly. Convicted gang leader Andre “Blackman” Bryan was on Monday sentenced to 39 and a half years behind bars for his leadership of the criminal organisation and for being the driving force behind several crimes which included murders and arson. His cronies Dylon McLean, Tomrick Taylor, Michael Whitely, Brian Morris, and Lamar Simpson were sentenced to seven years and three months, nine-and-a-half years, 16 years, 18 years and six months, and one year and six months, respectively the same day. On Tuesday, in the closing moments of the trial, the notorious Stephanie “Mumma” Cole-Christie, the sole female defendant, was sentenced to nine years and nine months, while 24-year-old convicted sharpshooter Tareek James was sentenced to 17 years and six months; Fabian Johnson, three years and nine months; the belligerent Ted Prince, 16 years; Jahzeel Blake, 11 years and nine months; Roel Taylor (cousin of Bryan), one year and nine months; Joseph McDermott, three years and 10 months; ex-soldier Jermaine Robinson, nine years and nine months; and driver for the gang Andrae Golding, five years and 11 months. However, while feeling some sense of achievement that the convictions have put a dent in the gang’s activities, Llewellyn was not pleased with the sentences. “The Act was promulgated in 2014, we are now in 2023, there was an amendment in 2021, but only in respect of some offences. Nothing was done in relation to the leadership offences. What we have is a situation where, if convicted, the court can sentence for a term not exceeding 30 years. We believe that in 2023 the public interest would oblige us to ask for life imprisonment and a mandatory minimum to be served of not less than 25 years,” she told journalists during an interview at the close of the trial on Tuesday. The gangsters, 33 of whom originally faced the court, were all tried under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) Act 2014. The Act, in the Second Schedule, indicates that, in relation to a conviction on indictment in a Circuit Court for the offence of leadership, management, or direction of a criminal organisation, the sentence is to be imprisonment for a term not exceeding 30 years. For a conviction in relation to membership of a criminal organisation, the schedule provides that, for a first offence, imprisonment should be for a term not exceeding 20 years. There is no mandatory minimum sentence in relation to either of the offences. The Crown, in opening its case on September 20, 2021 had said the individuals comprised the ‘Blackman faction’ of the gang and had various roles in which they acted as killers, drivers, lookout men or watchmen, gunsmiths, and foot soldiers. Llewellyn said her office, in concert with the country’s crime chief, Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey, will also be recommending that the penalty for membership be revisited. “In terms of membership, being part of a criminal organisation, we believe that we need to have a lifting of the maximum which is not exceeding 20 years. We believe that needs to be changed and perhaps should go up to not exceeding 40 years,” she said, noting that this would give judges leeway to apply varying prison terms depending on the various roles and level of involvement of the gangster. “The Section 10 offences — which address recruitment, inciting, aiding and abetting, tampering — for all of these offences the maximum should go up to life imprisonment. Persons who perpetuate these offences are literally driving blood into the skeletal structure [of these criminal outfits],” Llewellyn stated. “Here again we would not put a mandatory minimum,” she said, in order to give judges the flexibility “to go up the scale” depending on the actual roles played, and assessing the roles in the totality of the evidence. In praising trial judge Chief Justice Bryan Sykes for his deft handling of the sentencing exercise, Llewellyn said, “The chief justice went pretty high in his starting points, but at the end of the day, as a matter of law, the sentencing judge must give full credit for time already spent in custody.” In the meantime, she said recommendations will be made that the sentence for the offence of facilitating the commission of serious crimes be pegged to the sentence for the particular offence in law, once the Crown has been able to prove the commission of the offence. “I think it is absolutely critical… so, for example, the murder in this case, one individual was convicted of five counts of facilitating murder, but you saw what the chief justice had to give him, and he had to, in a very Solominic way, use the ability to hand down concurrent and consecutive sentences to arrive at 39-and-a-half years,” she pointed out. Llewellyn noted that although the Crown was able to prove that the murders were committed under the anti-gang legislation the sentencing judge could only go up to a particular ceiling in sentencing. Justice Sykes, in several instances during the trial, had made discreet references to the potential for conflict in that aspect of the legislation, noting that it posed a danger in terms of inconsistent decisions from the bench. “We are saying that in reality, because the sentence for murder would be life, then really and truly the sentencing judge should have been able to consider each of the counts up to life, and we believe it is really critical in the present climate that we have in Jamaica,” Llewellyn said. “We believe our cry for an amendment to increase the sentences should get the support of both sides of the political

The infamous Klansman gang operated with “a culture of impunity” under the leadership of a man who had no qualms about “killing again and again and again”, trial judge Chief Justice Bryan Sykes said on Monday as he handed down a combined 76 years’ prison sentences to six of the 15 convicted. However, Dylon McLean, one of the six, ahead of being carted off to serve his seven years and three months for the offences of being part of a criminal organisation and two counts of facilitating the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisa tion, was overheard scoffing at the assertions of the trial judge. “These shackles can’t hold mi; mi still young enuh,” the 27-year-old McLean, who is said to be suffering from a mental condition and has been placed on suicide watch, declared disdainfully to no one in particular during one of several court breaks. When prompted to repeat his words McLean did so without hesitation before clamming up. The remaining nine convicts should all be handed their sentences today. Justice Sykes, during his sentencing address, said based on the evidence disclosed in the case the convicts would have continued with their “criminal conduct” outside of their arrests and his decision to impose custodial sentences stemmed from the fact that there was nothing to indicate that the individuals had any intention to abandon a life of crime. In sentencing convicted gang leader Andre “Blackman” Bryan to 39 and a half years behind bars, the chief justice said the 38-year-old Bryan — who was convicted for leadership of the criminal gang and seven other counts which involved facilitating serious offences such as murder and arson between 2015 and 2019 — was the “prime mover and architect” responsible for at least five deaths that resulted from shootings and arson ordered by him. “The cumulative evidence of the indicted counts as well as the unindicted clearly shows that Mr Bryan was the leader of the organisation,” Justice Sykes said. Noting that killings were, in instances, carried out in daylight, the trial judge, in referencing an attack in the Fisheries area of St Catherine said, “There was no evidence anyone was wearing a mask. It is a culture of impunity. I can shoot anywhere, anytime, day or night it doesn’t matter.” In assessing Bryan’s role as leader of the gang, the chief justice said, “The evidence showed that Bryan did not intend to give up his life of crime.” Bryan, during that pronouncement, doubled over, grasping his stomach before sitting back up. The Klansman leader, who would have been first to be sentenced, based on the fact that he was named first on the indictment, ended up being sentenced second after he complained of physical discomfort and was removed from the courtroom for several minutes. Justice Sykes, in pointing out that violence was a consistent part of how the gang conducted its affairs, said, “The sentence now has to disable Mr Bryan from being able to conduct this kind of activity for an extended period of time. “What the evidence shows is that Mr Bryan was a man of extreme violence who was not afraid of having people killed again and again and again,” the trial judge declared. Justice Sykes, in handing down the 39 and a half years sentence to Bryan, said it was clear that the acts were “premeditated and preplanned”. Bryan, clad in a slate grey shirt and slate grey striped pants, for most of the hearing held his head down. Following his sentencing he walked from the dock without a backward look, his face expressionless. Along with Bryan and McLean, convicted gangsters Tomrick Taylor, Michael Whitely, Brian Morris, and Lamar Simpson were sentenced to nine-and-a-half years, 16 years, 18 years and six months, and one year and six months, respectively. When the matter resumes today the remaining convicts, namely Stephanie “Mumma” Cole Christie, Ted Prince, Jahzeel Blake, Andrae Golding, Tareek James, Joseph McDermott, Fabian Johnson, Roel Taylor, and Jermaine Robinson are expected to receive their sentences. The convicted gangsters were all tried under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) Act 2014. The Act, in the Second Schedule, indicates that, in relation to a conviction on indictment in a Circuit Court for the offence of leadership, management or direction of a criminal organisation, the sentence is to be imprisonment for a term not exceeding 30 years. For a conviction in relation to membership of a criminal organisation, the schedule provides that, for a first offence, imprisonment should be for a term not exceeding 20 years. There is no mandatory minimum sentence in relation to either of the offences. The Crown, in opening its case on September 20, 2021 with an initial 33 accused on trial, had said the individuals comprised the “Blackman faction” of the St Catherine-based gang and had various roles in which they acted as killers, drivers, lookout men or watchmen, gunsmiths, and foot soldiers.

The on-again, off-again sore issue of regulating vending at school gates was revived on Monday when more than 60 Ocho Rios Primary School students were rushed to St Ann’s Bay Hospital after consuming sweets laced with THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), a compound found in marijuana. Up to late evening seven of them were still hospitalised. But, according to hospital CEO Dennis Morgan, they were in stable condition. Earlier in the day, the hospital was the scene of chaos as a school bus pulled up with children who could barely stand. Shortly after 5:00 pm when the Jamaica Observer spoke with Ocho Rios Primary School Principal Suzette Barnes-Wilson she was concerned about three of the children who were still being treated in the emergency room. Barnes-Wilson said that the children got sick after consuming the sweets which they reportedly purchased from a vendor who is not known or connected to the school. “This morning, a lone vendor — no one knows him — came by and sold a product to our boys and girls, and we realised that after eight o’clock, going nine o’clock, they started to show symptoms — vomiting, feeling dizzy, blacking out — and so we rushed to the nurse and we contacted the Ministry of Education, the police, and the Ocho Rios Health Centre,” she said, adding that they were then instructed to take the children to hospital. “We got a bus to take our boys and girls to the hospital and thankfully, to God be the glory, they are doing much better now,” Barnes-Wilson said. “It’s assumed that ganja is a part of it… but we leave that for the authorities to tell us exactly what is in that,” she said. The colourful package containing the sweets is emblazoned with the name ‘Full Throttle Sour Belts’. It states that it has 10 servings of the sweets with advice that it should be kept out of reach of children and is “not intended for use by anyone under 21 years of age”. Senior Superintendent of Police Dwight Powell, the commanding officer for St Ann, confirmed that the vendor who sold the sweets to the students outside the perimeter fence of the school is unknown to them. “It is the first time we are told that he visited the school compound,” Powell said in a media release late Monday afternoon. He said the male vendor is being asked to report to the police and anyone with information that can assist with identifying him, or his whereabouts, is being asked to call the St Ann police or any of the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s confidential lines. Powell said the matter is being treated with the strictest urgency and a team has been dispatched to the hospital and the school “where we are gathering information around this incident”. Weighing in on the incident, Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President Leighton Johnson said the law is very clear on the matter of vending and these products being available to minors. “I think we just need to get back to the point where we really enforce the law as it relates to the use of marijuana,” he told the Observer Monday evening. “I don’t think marijuana sweets are sold on the open market. These are things that must be regulated. Anything that has to do with marijuana and that kind of thing, I believe is something that you have to get on prescription or it has to be used by direction,” he said. In the meantime, Johnson also raised concern about marijuana itself being available to students, noting that since the law which decriminalised possession of a particular amount of ganja was passed “we have seen an increase in usage by minors”. School administrators have long been battling with this kind of substance abuse among students from as low as grade seven, and now we see where it is being consumed by even students at the primary level,” Johnson said. He recommended that people who sell minors $50 and $100 bags of ganja be prosecuted. Additionally, he encouraged parents to be vigilant and learn the signs of marijuana usage by their children. “Search the bags to ensure that there is no trace or evidence of it; it has a smell. You need to know the signs that your children are using marijuana [and discourage the practice],” the JTA president said. “We ask parents to assist us to inform their children and encourage them and empower them with information. Have the conversation about the use of substances, not just marijuana, but alcohol,” he said. “The whole matter of vaping is something that we need to take into consideration as well, because as young as primary school students are involved in vaping,” the JTA head said. He said parents also need to encourage their children not to purchase sweets or items that seem suspicious, and not to fall prey or victim to people enticing them to try something new. Throughout the day, parents converged at the hospital, angry, scared and searching for answers and an assurance that this would never happen again. One woman called for a ban on vending at the school gate even as she conceded that it would have a negative impact on those who earn a living from the activity. The good, said the woman who did not want to be identified by name, will have to suffer for the bad. Another parent said he hopes the vendor accused of selling the ganja-laced sweets will be brought to justice. He said his daughter consumed the sweet she received from a friend. According to the United States Food and Drug Administration, Delta-8 THC, is a psychoactive substance found in the Cannabis sativa plant, of which marijuana and hemp are two varieties. The FDA warned that delta-8 THC products have not been evaluated or approved by the association for safe use in any context, and that they may be marketed in ways that put the public health at risk and should especially be kept out

TENNESHA Parkins, daughter of murdered People’s National Party (PNP) Councillor Ainsley Parkins, described her father at his funeral on Sunday as an honest and tireless worker, who was killed for defending the right. Parkins was shot and killed by gunmen on July 20 in Southborough, the Portmore, St Catherine division he represented. The funeral for the late councillor was held at Portmore Seventh-day Adventist Church in St Catherine and was attended by scores of people, including relatives, friends, and members of the PNP. Leader of the PNP, Mark Golding was among the mourners who turned out to pay their final respects to Parkins, said to a man who loved to serve his fellow men. “He was loved and will be missed. My relationship with my dad was complicated. My mom always said we had difficulties getting along because we were too similar. He was dedicated to whatever he felt was important, and worked tirelessly and honestly in the position [to which] he was entrusted. He felt that one should serve the community in which one resides. He did just that,” said the young woman. “He was a no-nonsense, outspoken man who did not tolerate corruption. I would say this led him to the grave. My father was extremely dedicated to his work as he believed he could make a difference — and he did make a difference. However, not everyone was for him and so his life was taken from him on July 20. He died doing what he loved and believed in,” Tennesha said during the eulogy. She said that her father, who was affectionately known as Teddy or Tyson, was born on November 20, 1967 in the parish of St Catherine. She said he was adamant about learning a trade when he was a young man, and decided to venture into woodwork and cabinet making, “which he excelled at”. Parkins, said Tennesha, spent his early years in Bog Walk, St Catherine, adding that from an early age he was very industrious and ambitious. “My dad tried many different things. He worked as a labourer on a housing project in Independence City. He built furniture and caskets, and even serviced an entire funeral. Ainsley later moved to Newlands in Portmore and formed the Dog Breeders Association in 2008. He was a fierce dog lover. “He was the president of the Newland Citizens’ Association, and that inspired him to want to do more for his fellow citizens, and thus his political career started. He eventually joined the People’s National Party and became the caretaker for the Southborough Division. From there he was elected as the councillor of that division. You will be missed so dearly. Rest in peace, daddy.” Mayor of Portmore Leon Thomas said Parkins “was a very good councillor and we miss him”. Kenord Grant, councillor for the Bridgeport Division in Portmore, said, “Councillor Parkins was a good colleague. He was an awesome representation for his people. He believed in his craft and as such he named himself the local government practitioner.” One female member of the PNP said she had a lot of respect for Parkins as she was impressed by his fearlessness. “Anything came his way, he wouldn’t back from it,” she said. In July the Jamaica Observer reported that Councillor Parkins’ penchant for naming and shaming individuals involved in criminal activity in his division was advanced, by people who knew him well, as a possible reason for his brutal murder. “He was a man who didn’t support slackness as a councillor. He has a bus with two loudspeakers on it, and from you start to give trouble him ‘loud up’ your name on full blast. He did that for many years, and him nuh hold back,” a male resident told the Observer near the murder scene in July.

THE 15 individuals, including a woman, who have been convicted as being members of the St Catherine-based Klansman gang will, beginning today, be handed their prison sentences by Chief Justice Bryan Sykes, bringing the curtains down on what is known to be the longest-running gang matter in the English-speaking Caribbean. Of the 15, several have rap sheets from previous run-ins with the law. Convicted Klansman leader Andre Bryan — otherwise called Blackman, General, G, and Teacha — will be sentenced for the offences of leadership of a criminal organisation and seven counts of facilitating the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisation. It is his first conviction. However, Bryan was arrested in 2010 for the June 2008 murder of then head of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) Douglas Chambers, but was acquitted after a 6-1 majority verdict of not guilty was handed down in the Gun Court Division of the Home Circuit Court in 2016, following his trial there. He was 30 years of age at the time. Convicted felon Tesha Miller is serving 38 years at hard labour for orchestrating that slaying. He is, however, appealing the conviction. Stephanie Christie, alias Mumma, who has been convicted for the offence of being part of a criminal organisation in the current trial, has five previous convictions. She was convicted in February of 2016 for obtaining money by false pretence and was again convicted in October 2017 for forgery, uttering forged documents, fraudulent conversion, and possession of forged documents. Defendant Ted Prince, o/c Mawga Man, who has been convicted for the offences of being part of a criminal organisation and facilitating the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisation, has four previous convictions. Prince, in 2013, was convicted for housebreaking and larceny and sentenced to imprisonment of two years and hard labour. In 2018 he was convicted for illegal possession of firearm and illegal possession of ammunition, and imprisoned for eight years at hard labour. In April of this year he was convicted of contempt of court for urinating in the Supreme Court building during a court session in the current trial. For that he was sentenced to 60 days at hard labour. Defendant Jahzeel Blake, o/c Squeeze Eye, was convicted for the offence of being part of a criminal organisation and two counts of facilitating the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisation. Blake was in 2012 convicted for carnal abuse and sentenced to three years, suspended for two years at hard labour. Andrae Golding, o/c Rae Tae Blacks, who has been convicted for the offence of being part of a criminal organisation, has had two previous convictions. In 2013 he was convicted for larceny of a motorcycle and imprisoned for 12 months at hard labour. In 2014 he was convicted for possession of ganja and sentenced to 40 hours of community service. Tareek James, o/c CJ and A Mess, who has been convicted for the offences of being part of a criminal organisation and four counts of facilitating the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisation, has one previous conviction. In 2018 the now 24-year-old man was convicted for the offence of malicious destruction of property. Joseph McDermott, o/c Papa, who has been convicted for the offence of being part of a criminal organisation, has no previous convictions, but the probation officer’s report to the court has flagged him as “high risk to society”. Tomrick Taylor, o/c Fancy Ras, who has been convicted for being part of a criminal organisation, is among those who have no previous convictions. Meanwhile, Michael Whitley, o/c Stennett, who has been convicted for the offences of being part of a criminal organisation and facilitating the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisation, also has no previous convictions. Dylon McLean, who has also been convicted for the offences of being part of a criminal organisation and two counts of facilitating the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisation, has no previous convictions. Lamar Simpson, who has been convicted for the offence of being part of a criminal organisation, also has no previous convictions Fabian Johnson O/C Crocs, who has been convicted for the offence of being part of a criminal organisation, also has no previous convictions. Roel Taylor, who has been convicted for the offences of being part of a criminal organisation, illegal possession of firearm, and the illegal possession of ammunition, also has no previous convictions. Jermaine Robinson, who has been convicted for the offence of being part of a criminal organisation, also has no previous convictions. And Brian Morris, who has been convicted for the offence of being part of a criminal organisation and facilitating the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisation, has no previous convictions. The convicted gangsters were all tried under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisations) Act 2014. The Act in the Second Schedule indicates that, in relation to a conviction on indictment in a Circuit Court for the offence of leadership, management or direction of a criminal organisation, the sentence is to be imprisonment for a term not exceeding 30 years. For a conviction in relation to membership of a criminal organisation, the schedule provides that, for a first offence, imprisonment should be for a term not exceeding 20 years. There is no mandatory minimum sentence in relation to either of the offences. The Crown, in opening its case on September 20, 2021 with an initial 33 accused on trial, had said the individuals comprised the “Blackman faction” of the gang and had various roles in which they acted as killers, drivers, lookout men or watchmen, gunsmiths, and foot soldiers. The 17 who were acquitted over the course of the trial were Jason Brown o/c Citypuss, Marco Miller, Pete Miller, Ricardo Thomas, Carl Beech, Chevroy Evans, Kemar Harrison, Donovan Richards, Dwight Hall, Daniel McKenzie, Kalifa Williams, Kevaughn Green, Damaine Elliston, Rushane Williams, Rivaldo Hylton, Owen Ormsby, and Dwayne Salmon. One accused, Andre

JUNCTION, St Elizabeth — They are Jamaica’s real schoolboy heroes. The quick thinking and swift action of a group of schoolboys from BB Coke High School here is being hailed far and wide for rescuing and moving — on foot — Jaheim Colman, 14, after he was beaten unconscious, allegedly by a grade 11 student for stepping on a shoe. The group consisting mainly of three boys who lifted the injured child and walked about 500 metres from the school through the busy town of Junction to a doctor’s office last Thursday. Dejaun Powell, 14, one of the three boys, told the Jamaica Observer that he rushed from his classroom to assist his friend upon seeing the brutal beating by the grade 11 student. “He [Colman] was in the line collecting his phone, it was crowded, so he made a bad step on the boy’s shoes. A few seconds after he was falling he grabbed onto the attacker’s jacket and the boy turned around and seh, ‘A badness you a pree’ and he punched him. Jaheim fell and the boy was stepping in his face and neck,” said Powell. “When I got down there I saw everybody videoing and we were saying ‘Jaheim, wake up,’ and he wasn’t responding. I had to move everybody out of the way and take him up, and I walked off with him,” added Powell. He said two other students joined in assisting to move Colman. “Khari and Dejaun [another student with the same name] gave me a hand when we were getting closer to Junction. Nobody [else] offered to help us; everybody was just asking ‘What happened?’ We brought him to the doctor and called his mother,” Powell told the Sunday Observer. “When we got to the doctor’s office they took off his shoes and said we have to step outside.” He said Colman became conscious at the doctor’s office, giving his friends the chance to request his mother’s number. “When he got to talk [to him]we asked for her number, and she came with his aunt. They then took him to Mandeville [Regional] Hospital,” he said. Powell explained that he became friends with Colman from grade seven to now, being in grade nine. “When I saw him on the ground I was wondering if he was dead, because he wasn’t responding. I have known him since grade seven. He doesn’t give trouble; he is always giving joke. He doesn’t trouble anybody. I feel so sorry and sad for him. He could have lost his life,” Powell said. His father, Romain Powell, said the courageous action of his son and other students was heroic. “I feel good to know that he has a heart to get the youngster to the doctor. He is his friend,” the father said. Colman’s aunt, Tameka Holness, commended the schoolboys. “It is sad when we watched the video and saw the three boys carrying him through the town to the doctor. It is very heartbreaking. Those boys are heroes, and we want to thank them,” she said. Colman’s mother, Shantel Gouldbourne, also expressed thanks to the schoolboys. “Thanks to everyone for their prayers and all who reached out. Most of all, thanks to the three children who took my son to the doctor,” she said on Saturday at Mandeville Regional Hospital. She said that following failed efforts to get a brain scan done in Mandeville, Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton informed her of arrangements and her son was on Saturday transferred to University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI). Dr Tufton, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, confirmed that support is being given. “This is most tragic and painful. Makes me very sad. Myself and the minister of education have been in touch with the mother of the child and the medical teams at Mandeville Regional and UHWI to give necessary support,” he said. Holness questioned the lack of resources at the hospital. “It is sad to know that in Mandeville there is a hospital and just to do a brain scan all the machines are down,” she said. Gouldbourne said she is distraught and has lost her appetite. “I keep on shaking. I haven’t eaten since the incident and I won’t eat until my son can eat,” she said. On Saturday, chairman of BB Coke High Cetany Holness told the Sunday Observer that “heads are rolling” at the institution following the incident. “We will be having a meeting with the security company in a view to find out how it is that something like that happened. It is placing the whole school administration in a bad light,” he said. “Heads are rolling, because from all indications the security company fell down and did so very badly. Monday we will be having a meeting with the company and if we have to change them, then we will. You can’t have a situation where a child was hit down in your presence and then you are going to tell us that you ran to another fight and [yet] the major incident was right there and you never see. As chairman of the school I am very upset with what happened,” he said. He said the school stands by Colman and his family. “Whatever support that he needs, from the school’s perspective, we are going to give it,” emphasised the chairman. On Friday, head of the St Elizabeth police, Acting Superintendent Coleridge Minto said the grade 11 student accused of the attack has been taken in to the police for questioning by his mother.

Opposition Senator Gabriela Morris has taken aim at the Government’s handling of Jamaica’s crime situation. Speaking in the Senate last Friday, Morris chastised the ruling Administration for “failing miserably at arresting the crime monster that plagues our nation”, while suggesting a “transformational change” in the approach to tackling the scourge. Morris, who was making her contribution to the State of the Nation Debate in the Upper House, stressed that to see any meaningful change, the root causes of violent crime has to be handled in a systematic way, “while also ensuring, of course, that we’re equipping the security forces and the justice system with the necessary legislation, tools, technology and human resources to carry out their work.” Further arguing that Jamaica’s chronic problem of crime and violence “reflects the failures within our society as a whole”, she said the systemic weaknesses must be addressed that create these conditions for many youth to become attracted to a life of serious crime. “We cannot continue to ignore them and expect the security forces to clean up the mess. We must move forward with alacrity towards effective interventions for youth at risk,” she said. Morris suggested that a well-funded nationalised programme be put in place to provide opportunities for vulnerable youth. “We have to give them a chance to become productive citizens through mentorship, training, remedial education and job placements. We must help to development them, by reinforcing life skills, building their self-esteem and a sense of citizenship,” she said. She also called for the return of various initiatives of the previous Administration including the Peace Management Initiatives, and Unite for Change “which helped to reduce our murder rate”. In the meantime, making reference to Tuesday’s early morning quadruple murder of three women and a man at a house in Crawle, St Catherine, Morris said the incident underscores the daunting challenges that Jamaica faces in curbing violent crime. “It serves as a stark reminder of the urgent and ongoing need to bolster safety and security in Jamaica, ensuring the protection of our citizens, including our children from the relentless grip of this crime monster,” she said. Further referencing the prime minister’s infamous election promise of building a society where people can sleep with their windows and doors open, Morris said “that has fallen flat and it appears that the prime minister, the minister of security, and the commissioner of police have all fallen asleep at the wheel. “Their slumber is unnerving for Jamaicans who see and feel the impact of crime and experience the generational trauma of crime in their homes and communities. Jamaica remains entrenched in a persistent and deeply concerning struggle against crime,” she said, noting that even with the Government’s continued investment in the security forces and “its reliance and somewhat insistence on using the states of emergency as a routine crime-fighting measure”, the problem of crime persists.

American Robert Benoit’s sentencing on Friday was conducted in-camera. However, information coming from inside the court was that when the 59-year-old Caucasian man heard that he would be spending 17 years and three months behind bars for having sex with a person under the age of 16 he clutched his chest and was uncharacteristically silent. Benoit’s reaction was in sharp contrast to his behaviour in March when, after being unanimously declared guilty by a jury comprising five men and two women in the St James Circuit Court, he erupted, charging that “corruption” and racism had a part in his verdict. Again, two Fridays ago, when the matter was called up for sentencing, Benoit became boisterous, resulting in his attorney Christopher Townsend making an application to withdraw his representation. This Friday, however, after being sentenced at the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston, where his case had been transferred, the diminutive Benoit, dressed in an earth-toned shirt and stonewashed jeans, his long blonde hair caught in a ponytail, listened calmly and remained mum, the Jamaica Observer was told. The newspaper learnt that Supreme Court Judge Justice Andrea Thomas, in handing down the sentence, pointed to several aggravating factors, one of which she said was the vast age difference between Benoit and the victim. The other was his treatment of the complainant as a “cheap commodity” for his “sexual gratification” and the manner in which the act was committed. Other aggravating factors, she said, were his use of gifts to get close to the victim and his posing as a Bible teacher for her. The Observer was told that Benoit had conducted Bible classes on at least two occasions with the complainant. Justice Thomas on Friday reportedly said the mitigating factors were his relatively good social enquiry (community) report and the absence of any previous convictions. The little girl, in a victim impact statement placed into the records of the court, reportedly said she battled depression after the incident as she felt betrayed by her father who “always tell me he would not let any man trouble me, but he let Bob have sex with me”. In expressing a desire to be back home, the child who is in the custody of the State, said while she has cried a lot, since the verdict was handed down she has been feeling better because she knows Benoit will be put away and cannot “trouble” her again. In the evidence unveiled in the matter, the incident took place in December 2020, two days before Christmas. Prosecutors said that on the night of December 23 Benoit had visited the 12-year-old girl’s home. According to the child, she was instructed by her father to spend the night with the then 57-year-old man and “bring back the money”. She said right after that statement was made to her, Benoit bought her father a bottle of Magnum tonic wine and left with her. According to Benoit, who is a regular visitor to the island, he was in the community to give care packages to people there. The girl’s mother said in her evidence that she was responsible for taking care of Benoit’s rented home in the area and so would go there to cook and clean for him. She, however, denied knowing what transpired between him and her child. The young girl said that night, while she was at his house, she was awakened from sleep by Benoit who was atop her. She said the man had intercourse with her. The following morning, police, acting on information, showed up at the residence in search of Benoit. When he finally emerged from the dwelling, the little girl told the police that he had been inside “trying to hide” her. He was subsequently arrested and charged for having sex with a person under the age of 16. In April this year lobby group Families for Freedom, a New York City human rights organisation operated by and for families facing and fighting deportation, launched a petition seeking to have the United States Government intervene in the matter. According to the group, Benoit had been wrongfully charged by the Jamaican police and suffered abuse and injuries while in custody. The group further charged that Benoit was wrongfully charged due to lack of legal guidance. They further charged that videos of the complainant declaring that Benoit did not touch her, which they had in their possession, had been sidelined by the prosecution and were not accepted as evidence. Additionally, they claimed that Benoit is ageing and, having been subjected to injuries inflicted by Jamaican cops, will be killed in prison.

JUNCTION, St Elizabeth — A St Elizabeth family is demanding justice after their relative, 14-year-old Jaheim Colman, was beaten unconscious, allegedly by a grade 11 student, for stepping on a pair of Clarks shoes, and had to be moved on foot by his schoolmates from BB Coke High to a doctor’s office about 500 metres away. The incident, which happened on Thursday about 2:45 pm, has generated widespread debate on violence in schools. The incident prompted emergency meetings with school administrators, the board, police, and Ministry of Education officials Thursday night, and again on Friday at the Junction-based school. Colman’s mother, Shantel Gouldbourne, is demanding that her son’s aggressor face the necessary punishment from not only the school but also the law. “I need justice. I need [the student] to get punished because I could stay anywhere and hear that my son died at the school. I need the school to deal with it. I need the law to deal with it. I need this to go to the Ministry of Education,” she said outside the Mandeville Regional Hospital on Friday morning. Her son has been admitted at the hospital with a swollen face and is awaiting scans to determine the extent of his injuries. “He is supposed to do a brain scan; he did an X-ray [on Thursday]. The doctors said they see a sign of air behind his brain so they are not really sure of anything yet until he does the scan,” Colman’s aunt and Gouldbourne’s sister, Tameka Holness, explained. The mother described her son’s condition when she visited him at the hospital on Friday. “He is talking but the light is affecting his eye so he has to have it covered. His whole face is swollen. The eyes are shutting down, black and blue and blood marks,” she said. The Jamaica Observer was told that shortly after the dismissal of classes on Thursday, Colman and another boy were among students collecting their phones when the older boy accused the younger boy of stepping on his Clarks shoes. “He made a bad step,” Colman’s aunt said. The older boy is accused of pushing Colman to the ground, beating him, and stepping in his face. “He fell, hit his head, and got knocked out and then [the student] was stepping in his face. It is very sad to see that you can send your kids to school and to get a phone call like that,” said the aunt. She claims the school’s security personnel didn’t report the incident to school administrators, resulting in her nephew being taken by his peers on foot through the busy town of Junction, to seek medical attention. “It is Jaheim’s friends who had to walk with him, pick him up and walk with him through Junction town to bring him to [a doctor],” she said. She claimed that efforts to contact school officials on Thursday led to a distasteful phone call conversation between herself and a woman who she identified as a teacher at the institution. “We were trying to get in touch with the school [but] we got a teacher’s number. We called her, trying to get the principal’s number. Her response was: ‘I am not the principal. I am not the dean of discipline. How did you get my number? You are not supposed to call me,’ and all that so I am thinking, you know, as a teacher you could have dealt with that better,” said the aunt. “You could simply tell us how you are going to get in touch with the principal,” she added. Head of the St Elizabeth police, Acting Superintendent Coleridge Minto said the grade 11 student was brought in to the police by his mother, for questioning. And Gouldbourne said she met with school administrators Friday morning. “We went to the school and they said they are going to call a meeting with the boy’s parents. The police also went over there; they said they are going to take it from there. I have to go back to the police station,” she said. Chairman of the school’s board, Cetany Holness, expressed shock at the incident. “We had an emergency meeting [Thursday] night. The incident was very unfortunate. We are in disbelief at this time because we couldn’t believe that an 11th grade student could have ill-treated a grade nine student to that magnitude to the extent where the student was knocked out completely,” he said. He said the aggressor is a known “troublemaker”. “He is a student who we have under the radar at the institution. He appeared before the personnel committee on numerous occasions,” said Holness. When asked about the school’s lack of response in getting medical care for the child, Holness said the administrators became aware of the matter late. “The principal wasn’t aware of the situation until about half an hour after,” he said. He said the school’s arrangement with its security company has come into question. “In terms of the security at the gate, what the security should have done when the incident took place, they should have reported the matter to the dean of discipline who would report the matter to the principal [so] that the school could have attacked very swiftly,” explained Holness. “We are really looking at the security company. I think they fell down on their duty, and we have to do something about them. The job that they are placed at the gate to do, they really fell down badly,” he said. Holness said the school will be seeking to take action against the grade 11 student. “We are going to have the student, his parents, at a personnel committee hearing at the board of management of the school, and we are looking at that student as a big troublemaker in the institution and we will take it from there,” he said. Colman’s aunt said the incident raises questions about the safety of students from the violence of their peers. “What hurts the most is

SOME legislators reviewing the proposed Jamaica Teaching Council (JTC) Bill have raised concerns regarding a provision for the protection of individual members of the council’s subcommittee – the professional practice and conduct committee (PPCC) – against possible lawsuits. At Thursday’s meeting of the joint select committee (JSC) of Parliament reviewing the JTC Bill, members questioned why the council would be liable for the actions of the individual and not the PPCC, which, when formalised under the Bill, will be responsible for disciplinary matters relating to teachers. The proposed provision states that (a) no action, suit, prosecution or other proceedings shall be brought or instituted personally against any member of the committee in respect of any act done bonafide in pursuance or execution or intended execution of the committee’s functions under this Act or any other enactment; (b) where any member of the committee is exempt from liability by reason only of the provisions of this paragraph, the council shall be liable to the extent that it would be if that member was an employee or agent of the council. Government member Tova Hamilton, who noted that the provision is referring to the personal liability of individuals, said that while she appreciates the indemnity, “what (b) is saying is that if a member should act outside of his or her lawful duty, then based on what it is saying, the council now would be responsible for that person’s action but I don’t think the council should be responsible for that person’s action, that individual should be”. Solicitor General Marlene Aldred said she also had a difficulty with the provision in terms of the issue of liability, noting that she “cannot find a precedent where it’s done this way”. “If a member of a specific entity is being protected, what you always have is to allow for a means of redress. And so, if you can’t sue the specific member, you would sue the entity. Here, the entity is the PPCC. I think the draft should have said that who is liable is the PPCC. “We have it even for tribunals. Tribunals are not body corporates, but you don’t go against the individual tribunal member. Who you sue would be the tribunal itself, it’s the entity, not the umbrella organisation or group,” she said. Aldred said she is concerned about this obligation being placed on the council and the council was not involved in the deliberations and discussions and the decision of the PPCC. “I think it’s a little unfair to place that burden on the council and not place it on the actual entity, which is the PPCC,” she said. Education Minister Fayval Williams, who is chair of the JSC, responded by explaining that the PPCC “is not a corporate entity, it’s not a body corporate…remember, the PPCC is only acting on behalf of the council”. Government committee member Ransford Braham, however, had a different view, noting “it’s a good thing to protect the individual members of the PPCC and council when acting bona fide because otherwise the Government will have to provide indemnity insurance for them. So I think that we could have the protection for the PPCC members and also the council members for performing duties bonafide. “This is the first time I’m seeing it, but I like it. Usually, you just have a blanket protection and the citizen has no right, but what this is trying to do is to say, even though the individual may be protected, if the individual does something, whoever that individual is, that he would without this protection he could have been sued, then you can kick it upstairs.to the council to bear the responsibility for them,” he said. Added Braham: “I think that at the very least, the council members should be protected as well and we could protect the council and the PPCC members and leave it at that full stop, which is a usual practice, or we could also go further now and say, but nevertheless, if the members would have been otherwise liable, but for this Act, then you can try to sue the council itself on behalf of everybody.” Williams said at the next committee meeting, committee members will make a decision on the matter about whether or not to keep part two of the proposed provision.

THE electoral watchdog group Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE) has joined the growing list of entities expressing concern over the Government’s decision to shutter the Office of the Political Ombudsman. The office was established by legislation some two decades ago as an independent commission of Parliament with a mandate to monitor adherence to the code of conduct agreed to by Jamaica’s registered political parties. But in November 2022 Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck told the Jamaica Observer that the office would be closed when the term of its last head, Donna Parchment Brown, ended. “The functions of the political ombudsman will be, going forward, subsumed under the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ),” Chuck told the Observer at the time. The Government was expected to save $30 million annually with closure of the political ombudsman’s office, but Chuck argued that this was not the main reason behind the decision. “From as far back as 2012, Parliament passed a resolution to say that a political ombudsman’s functions would be better supervised and managed by the Electoral Commission where you have independent members [as well as] representatives of both political parties to consider the complaints that come in at any time, but especially at election time,” Chuck argued then. At that time, Chuck had promised that legislation to subsume the work of the political ombudsman into the ECJ would be completed in the first quarter of this year. But, speaking at a post-Cabinet media briefing in July, Chuck said the transition had been stalled for several months because of bureaucracy. “I’m a little disappointed that my commitment to have the political ombudsman subsumed into the electoral commission has not been done,” said Chuck. “For the last two or three months it has been doing musical chairs, but I’m hoping that it will be done in due course,” added Chuck as he promised that the legislation would be in place “shortly”. That promise has provided little comfort to CAFFE which, on Thursday, joined Jamaicans For Justice, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, National Integrity Action, and others, in expressing concern about the absence of a political referee such as the ombudsman. According to CAFFE, it is concerned that Jamaica is on the verge of entering a period of election campaigning without the benefit of having a specific person executing the functions of the political ombudsman. “CAFFE considers that the Office of Political Ombudsman, during periods of electioneering, performs functions which are of vital importance to our endeavours to maintain stability and ethical standards in our political pronouncements and activities,” said the group in a release. “CAFFE does not consider that it is prudent to submit to the Electoral Commission of Jamaica the ethical questions which are normally dealt with by the political ombudsman. Saddling the ECJ with this responsibility overlooks the reality that its membership includes politicians. “At the height of the political campaigns they should not be asked to bear the responsibility to pronounce on the appropriateness of the statements and actions of their colleagues and supporters. Furthermore, at the height of the campaign, when the administrative pressures on the electoral system are at the highest, the ECJ should not be embroiled in the adjudication, mediation, and formulation of directives in respect of ethical issues relating to or arising from the conduct of political candidates and their supporters,” said CAFFE. Jamaicans are expected to return to the polls by February next year for local government elections with the general election constitutionally due by 2025. But already both major political parties, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the People’s National Party (PNP), have signalled that they are in campaign mode with occasional statements that would have attracted the interest of a political ombudsman. In March this year, supporters of both parties were embroiled in a major war of words on social media over Finance Minister Nigel Clarke’s labelling of Opposition Leader Mark Golding as “Massa Mark” during the closing of the 2023/24 Budget Debate. The embers of the fire were sparked in the House of Representatives minutes after Clarke referred to Golding’s labelling of JLP supporters as “damn fool” at a PNP function and charged that “never sound like Markie G, it sound like Massa Mark”. Angered by that comment, PNP chairman and Member of Parliament for St Andrew South Western Angela Brown Burke rose on a point of order which quickly degenerated into a walkout of the House by the Opposition members. The controversy worsened as the PNP issued a media release in which it said that it was outraged and repulsed by the racial inference used by Clarke to characterise Golding. Clarke refused to apologise. Two months later, PNP General Secretary Dr Dayton Campbell called for Prime Minister Andrew Holness to rein in what he described as the disgraceful behaviour of Minister without portfolio with responsibility for works Everald Warmington. Addressing a PNP meeting in Manchester, Dr Campbell chided Warmington for his verbal attack on a PNP caretaker during a tour of Portland Eastern. Warmington was seen angrily berating councillor candidate for the Fellowship Division, Colin Bell, telling Bell that he would not be conducting a tour with councillor-caretakers, regardless of their party affiliation. In July, Golding withdrew a comment he had made which was interpreted to encourage the casting of ballots in the names of dead voters during the PNP’s St Andrew East Rural constituency meeting. Golding, who had faced backlash from a wide cross section of society, including the JLP, said his comment was taken out of context and was meant to be humorous.

IN the wake of seven people being killed in the last 72 hours Justice Minister Delroy Chuck is again making a case for harsher minimum sentences to be imposed for people who commit capital murder. Drawing on the Tuesday morning quadruple murder in Crawle, Riversdale, St Catherine, in which three women and a man were killed in a house and the triple murder in Grant’s Pen, St Andrew, on Sunday, in which three men were shot at a construction site, Chuck said it is because of incidents like these that several Bills dealing with minimum sentencing for murder are being reviewed to “send the right signal” to criminals. Among the proposed changes set out in the three pieces of related legislation is a mandatory minimum sentence of 50 years for capital murder. Describing the murderous acts as “real outrageous behaviour”, Chuck questioned how people “can deliberately take it on themselves to go and shoot up [people]”. “Just two nights ago four persons were killed, and that is a deliberate act. It’s the same that happened in Grant’s Pen on Sunday — whether it is revenge or retaliation or just heartless behaviour,” the justice minister said. Chuck, who was chairing the meeting of the joint select committee reviewing the various mandatory minimum legislation on Wednesday, said he was pleased that the perpetrators were apprehended within a couple hours and expressed the hope that others involved in the Crawle incident will also be quickly nabbed. If these criminals, he said, could be quickly apprehended and convicted with the appropriate sentencing, then people would feel that justice was done. “It takes too long for justice to be complied with, and that is a problem in our country. But once they are found, and especially if the evidence is strong to get them convicted, I think the country is calling out and we can’t ignore what the country is calling for — severe penalties — and that is why these Bills are before us,” he said. The proposed changes being considered by members of the joint select committee include amendments to the Offences Against the Person Act (OAPA), the Criminal Justice (Administration) Act, and the Child Care and Protection (Amendment) Act, 2023. Amendments to Section 3(1)(b) of the OAPA would increase the mandatory minimum sentence from 15 to 45 years. Where a capital murder has been committed, the mandatory minimum sentence to be served before being eligible for parole moves from 20 to 50 years under Section 3 (1C)(a), and under Section 42(F) of the Criminal Justice (Administration) Act, the term of years to be deemed as life imprisonment increases from 30 to 50 years when the offence committed is murder. Under the Child Care and Protection (Amendment) Act 2023, it is being proposed that children convicted of murder serve a mandatory sentence of 20 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole. Chuck said that, while the committee has heard the submissions of the various contributors, including Jamaicans For Justice, which suggested rehabilitation and consideration of the overcrowding of the prisons, his view is that once they are found, evidence is compelling, and they are convicted, the State should impose the strongest penalty. He stressed that people have been asking for the death penalty for capital murder, which is still on the statute books, and while he hopes the country does not resort to that punishment, the alternative must be severe. Said Chuck: “Another possibility is life imprisonment with a very high minimum mandatory. What is being proposed in the Bill is 50 years and, to be frank, once it’s capital we have to send that signal very clear that that person has been a menace to society, and, therefore, should be locked away for a very, very long time, even to the extent of life.” “How low we go, we must consider; we have started out at 30 years. To be fair, persons have suggested 25 [years], should we go there? The point we are making [is that] for capital murder we must be as severe as we can. For non-capital murder, I feel we could be less severe and allow the court a wide discretion,” he said.

ALREADY facing a dengue fever outbreak, Jamaica is now headed towards the proverbial ‘perfect storm’ as the annual flu season looms. Addressing a post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House on Wednesday director of health services, planning and integration at the Ministry of Health, Dr Naydene Williams underscored that while Jamaica is facing the dengue outbreak, the annual flu season should not be ignored. Dr Williams noted that Jamaica had surpassed the dengue epidemic threshold for July and August and is on a trajectory to do the same this month. But she pointed that the health ministry has already instituted some measures to deal with the dengue threat while the other will take effect next week. “In anticipation of a possible outbreak, the Ministry of Health and Wellness implemented its enhanced vector control programme in July of this year,” said Williams who is covering the desk of the country’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Jacquiline Bisasor-McKenzie, who is off the island on official business. She said the ministry has also employed 500 temporary vector control workers to work with the 213 permanent staff, with other temporary workers to be employed shortly. Williams also told the media briefing that the opening hours of types three to five health centres will be extended to 8:00 pm, starting on Monday, to allow people to access the facilities to seek treatment and referrals where necessary. “Also as of Monday, October 2, children under the age of 18 years will, while visiting the University Hospital of the West Indies, not be charged a fee or be required to pay for the services to this facility. “In addition, the resources from the National Health Fund will expand the community strategies through the engagement of all stakeholders at the community level. The engagement will involve the provision of resources to undertake dengue mitigation strategies,” said Williams. This will include support for the removal of bulky waste, drain cleaning exercises across the island. Earlier Williams had pointed out that it was determined that Jamaica is facing a dengue fever outbreak after recording an increase in the number of cases compared to what is normally seen in July, August and September. As of Friday, September 22, 2023, the country recorded 565 suspected, presumed and confirmed cases of dengue. Of that number, 78 cases had been confirmed, with the majority of the cases in Kingston and St Andrew, St Catherine and St Thomas. Williams pointed out that the dominant strain of dengue now being recorded in Jamaica is type two which last predominated in the island in 2010. “The majority of these cases are children between the ages of five and 14. There is no dengue-related death classified at this time; however, six deaths are being investigated,” added Williams. Dengue is a mosquito-borne disease spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which transmits the disease, is endemic to Jamaica. Williams noted that the symptoms of dengue are usually mild and some people may experience a fever, headache, pain behind the eyes, joint and muscle pain, and some vomiting and diarrhoea. She underscored that rest and hydration is usually enough to see people through the illness with the recommended treatment being paracetamol or acetaminophen. Williams warned that any medication which is described as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug is not to be taken by someone who believes they have dengue as these drugs could cause an increase in the severity of the disease. Turning to the flu season, which starts in October, Williams noted that the flu or influenza is an acute viral respiratory infection the spreads easily from person to person mainly by coughing, sneezing and through close contact. “The virus circulates worldwide and can affect anybody, anywhere, any time, any group of persons with varied symptoms,” noted Williams. “The flu is to be taken seriously because at any time it can lead to pneumonia, and blood infections and causes diarrhoea…in children,” said Williams as she added that the flu can also worsen chronic medical conditions such as heart or lung disease. Williams reported that the health ministry now has 18,000 doses of the flu vaccine which are being distributed without cost at public health facilities while private medical practitioners are being encouraged to also source the vaccines.

COMFORT CASTLE, Portland – Principal of Comfort Castle Primary and Infant School, Dalmain Moore has trouble sleeping. He keeps going over his last moments with eight-year-old Vinice “Sunshine” Burke. But the pleasant memories of that encounter, as he joked with her and other students at the Portland school, are being eroded by her mysterious death hours later. “The teachers are very distraught over the situation and as principal and the person who last interacted with her from the school, it has affected me terribly, to the point where I now have difficulty sleeping,” he told the Jamaica Observer on Tuesday during a visit to the school. He said little Vinice was among a group of children he gave a ride home on Friday after he treated them to patties left over from the school’s supply. Later that night, he got news he never expected or wanted to hear. “Some minutes after 10, thereabout, I got a call from a parent who now resides in Antigua who said the child died. I couldn’t understand, I said, ‘What you talking about? I brought that child down today and she was quite okay’,” Moore said as he fought back tears that threatened to spill down his face. “She was not sick; I could not understand, I really couldn’t. It hit me very hard and so I took my phone and made some calls and did some enquiries and I found out that the child was found dead at home. I honestly don’t know if I can get past this so easily as I was the last person from the school to have interacted with the child before she died. Not only that, the gruesome nature of the death as well; I really don’t know if it is an accident or if it a case of murder,” the principal added. According to Observer sources, the child was at her house last Friday when the incident occurred. It is alleged that her stepfather said he and another man were at the front of the yard making a bed head, when he saw Vinice outside without shoes. She had a plastic bag in her hand. According to the stepdad, he sent the girl back inside the house to put on her shoes. It was reported that when he did not hear from Vinice, he went to check and saw the girl lying on the floor, unresponsive. The plastic bag was over her face and there was a pool of urine near her body. He reportedly made checks inside the house but did not see anyone. He took the child to the Port Antonio Hospital where she was pronounced dead about 6:30 pm. On Monday, a special devotion was held in Vinice’s memory but a number of students were not in school because of heavy rain that caused landslides and flooding. Moore is hoping counsellors from the education ministry, whose visit was also derailed on Monday, will be there before the end of the week. Among those who will likely benefit from their support is Vinice’s teacher Keila Morsby. On Tuesday she was still struggling to come to grips with the child’s death. “Sunshine was a very radiant and lively child, just as her name suggests. She was loving, a friend to everyone and a good student as she tried her best,” said the grade three teacher. “We had a short session with the students yesterday; today a teacher is having a session with them, getting the feelings out and everything. We have students, family members and teachers crying. We are all friends; it’s a small school and we walk together, travel together and play together,” Morsby added. Her initial reaction to the news of Vinice’s death, she said, had been disbelief. The last thing the child excitedly told her, she said, was that she would be going to spend time with her mother. Later that evening, Morsby said an acquaintance sent a picture of Vinice to her phone and asked if she knew her. “I said, ‘Yes, she’s in my class and came to school today’. The person said, ‘She’s dead’,” the teacher recalled. She refused to believe, clinging to the fact that Vinice had been “at school today and she was okay”. “I wasn’t even thinking about foul play or anything like that. It was very shocking and I said to myself, ‘I don’t believe this but if Monday comes and I look on the bus and she’s not there well then it is true’. When I came on the bus I looked around and I didn’t see her. I started to cry and that was it. It’s not been easy for us here,” said Morse. Vinice turned eight years old in July. A police investigation into her death continues.

JAMAICA’S push for reparation for transatlantic chattel slavery has been moved into the United Nations (UN) General Assembly by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Kamina Johnson Smith. Delivering Jamaica’s policy statement at the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, Johnson Smith argued that a shared commitment to achieve progress, prosperity and sustainability for all cannot be fulfilled until, “we definitively close the chapter on slavery and its legacies in our global history”. “The residual impact of the immorality of slavery and the transatlantic slave trade has lingered for far too long, and justice and accountability are long overdue. “The systemic imbalances caused by centuries of exploitation constitute the foundation of the persistent under-development, which countries like Jamaica have worked hard to overcome,” said Johnson Smith. “Jamaica, therefore, reaffirms its determination to further the call for the international recognition of reparatory justice as a necessary path to complete healing, restoration of dignity, and progress for people of African descent. “Together, we must stride confidently forward in good faith, building on the lessons of that horrific past, and moving purposefully towards a common future. Furthermore, Jamaica supports the call for an extension of the International Decade for People of African Descent as insufficient progress has been made to address racial injustices worldwide,” added Johnson Smith. A recent report on reparation for transatlantic chattel slavery in the Americas and the Caribbean has suggested a US$108-trillion debt owed by the perpetrators. The report, titled ‘Reparations for Transatlantic Chattel Slavery in the Americas’, was produced by a team led by International Court judge, Jamaican Patrick Robinson and says that Britain alone owes the descendants of the enslaved in 31 countries in the Caribbean, Central America and North America US$24 trillion, of which US$9.5 trillion is owed to Jamaica. It states that Spain has a debt of US$17 trillion, of which Jamaica is entitled to about $1 trillion; France owes US$9 trillion; Portugal, US$20 trillion, including US$4 trillion to Brazil; and the Netherlands owes about US$5 trillion to its regional colonies, including Suriname.

Five children outside their neighbour’s house in the dead of night was the first sign that something sinister was afoot in the quiet farming district of Crawle in Riversdale, St Catherine, on Tuesday. Neighbours soon learnt that the five siblings, all boys between the ages of six months and 14 years, had been sent out of their house by gunmen who had forced their way inside and murdered their mother, 45-year-old Kerrian Higgins McGrath; grandmother, Dorothy Higgins; the helper, 38-year-old Dianne Nicola Johnson of Tom’s Hope in Fellowship, Portland; and her spouse, known only as Kevin. Police said the brutal murders were committed about 2:15 am by three men, all dressed in dark clothing, wearing masks and armed with handguns. According to Kerensia Morrison, the Member of Parliament (MP) for St Catherine North Eastern, one of the gunmen placed the baby in his stroller and told the other children to pack food and clothes and leave the house. Morrison said the victims were known to the residents as “hard-working people”. “It’s a peaceful constituency; you see the humble people — small farmers, shopkeepers. They go about their daily course of life. So to hear the concerns, the cries, [and] the grief, it is unbearable, and as their Member of Parliament they are looking to me for answers, for comfort. So, what I can commit to is to work closely with the police as they go about finding who the perpetrators are and, very importantly, that this does not become a feature of an otherwise peaceful community,” Morrison said. As news of the murders started to spread, residents gathered on the road near the house looking on in disbelief. One resident, who described the family as “very quiet” told the Jamaica Observer that he is shocked that something like this happened in the community. “It rough, because I never expected this…Crime turn up everywhere,” the man said, adding that he has lived in the community for more than 20 years and this was the first time he had seen something like this. A 54-year-old woman said the slain family concerned themselves mostly with farming and taking their children to school. However, the grandmother, Dorothy, was “more jovial” and sociable and would readily participate in various church activities. “I feel very overwhelmed because we never see anything like this. I’ve been here from I was born,” the distraught woman said. A relative of the victims said he was “in shock” and was worried about the children. Senior Superintendent of Police Stephanie Lindsay, while lamenting the tragedy, thanked God that the children had not been harmed. “They are in police custody and they are currently working now to find some relatives to take custody of the children,” she said. Lindsay, who heads the constabulary’s communications arm, said at the time that the police had no leads as to the motive, as the investigation was still in the early stage. “They are picking bits and pieces of information from whoever they can talk to and from what our intelligence is telling us. But still we don’t know, so they are following some lines of enquiries and looking at everything they are getting now to see if we can be closer to what led to this attack and then who are the persons responsible,” Lindsay stated. She also revealed that before the attack the family was in mourning as a male member had died suddenly last Friday. Lindsay said a complete profile for him would have to be done now that his family members had been murdered. Additionally, a post-mortem is to be done to confirm the cause of death. With a number of theories circulating as to the motive for Tuesday’s murders, Lindsay urged anyone with information to contact the Riversdale Police Station, the Spanish Town Police Station, Crime Stop at 311, or the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s anonymous tip line 811.

THERE were loud cheers Tuesday as new Speaker of the House Juliet Holess took her seat in Parliament’s Chambers after her election, which signalled the unanimous acceptance of her appointment by colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Holness – Member of Parliament for St Andrew East Rural – was elevated to this position following last week’s resignation of the embattled former Speaker Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert. Dalrymple-Philibert, who also resigned as MP for Trelawny Southern, was under mounting pressure to step aside following a damning report from the Integrity Commission which recommended eight criminal charges against her related to omissions she made on her statutory declarations for the period 2015 to 2021. During Tuesday afternoon’s nomination proceedings, MP for St James Central Heroy Clarke was elected deputy speaker, taking over from Holness who had been deputy speaker since the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) returned to power following its landslide victory in the September 2020 General Election. There was much excitement as Holness was surrounded by three gleeful female parliamentary colleagues – Juliet Cuthbert Flynn, Krystal Lee, and Dr Michelle Charles – who took the new speaker to her seat when her nomination was affirmed. Clerk to the Houses of Parliament Valrie Curis, who presided over the proceedings, asked three times if there were any other nominations to which there were loud “nos” from parliamentarians. Justice Minister Delroy Chuck, who nominated both Holness and Clarke, was the first to welcome the new speaker. He congratulated her for making herself available for the role and thanked the members for how supportive they were in her election. Pointing out that Holness is someone he has known for over two decades, Chuck stressed that he has “absolutely no doubt that your competence, your skill, your intelligence will ensure that this Parliament is conducted orderly and in a way that the Jamaican people can be proud. “I have no doubt that your management of this Parliament, as demonstrated when you were deputy speaker and also as a chairman of committee, will ensure that meetings are conducted without fear or favour, without bias and also to give the opportunity for all the members to participate and to make their voices heard; I have no doubt that your stint as speaker will be a sterling one,” he said. Chuck also extended the House’s “thanks and appreciation to the outgoing speaker; we wish her well”. Leader of Opposition Business Phillip Paulwell, who seconded Holness’s nomination, also congratulated her on the ascension to House speaker. “Early in your tenure, it is my hope that both leader of government business and myself will be able to sit with you to look at some of the issues that we have had to deal with in the past and to see how we can share in our collective wisdom in the guidance that you will need from time to time from those of us in this chamber. We wish you well; we genuinely want you to do well so that your tenure can be very successful,” he said MP for St Mary Western Robert Montague, who added his voice to the congratulatory messages to Holness and Clarke, also praised Dalrymple-Philibert for her tenure as House speaker and MP, noting the “excellent service that she gave to her constituents and indeed to the people of Jamaica”. In her response, Holness thanked her colleagues for the confidence that they have shown in her ability to “handle the very difficult job of being the speaker of this Parliament”. “I accept my responsibility with great humility and I will always endeavor to ensure that I manage with equity, judiciously, [with] balance and always in keeping with the Standing Orders of this noble House,” she said. She further noted that the occasion is “the beginning of excellent camaraderie when a member from the Opposition side stands up to second the nomination of the member from the Government side for speaker or deputy speaker, and I hope as we continue to do our duties on behalf of the people of Jamaica, we will continue to display that type of relationship that keeps our House disciplined and orderly in the benefit of all the people of Jamaica”. Holness, at the same time, thanked her predecessor from whom she has “learned so much because of her leadership”. The new speaker noted that even after having resigned, the former speaker “spent every day” ensuring that she was fully prepared to take up the mantle upon her departure. “Former Speaker, I personally thank you for your service and I am expecting that you will be there along with other former speakers, both here in the House and those who are in retirement, to continue to guide my hand,” she said. In the meantime, the new deputy speaker thanked his colleagues for appointing him and affirmed that he “will work diligently, along with my colleagues on both sides, to make sure that discipline and order continue to be in this House”.

ALBERT TOWN, Trelawny — After a few hours spent, in light rain, appealing to Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert to reconsider quitting as their Member of Parliament, Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) supporters are now eagerly awaiting her decision. Interspersed among residents gathered in Albert Town on Monday, singing the praises of the woman who has represented the constituency since 2007, were minister of state in the Office of the Prime Minister (West), Homer Davis; mayor of Falmouth, Councillor C Junior Gager; as well as senior advisor and strategist in the Ministry of Tourism Delano Seiveright. There was also a show of support by other JLP councillors and councillor/caretakers from the constituency, as well as from neighbouring Trelawny Northern. But it was the grass roots supporters who were most vocal at times. One woman, identified as Shower Muma, fell to her knees in an impassioned plea to JLP leader and Prime Minister Andrew Holness. “I am asking Andrew Holness, please don’t receive the resignation,” she implored. Another supporter, Marsha Gibson, had very personal reasons for wanting Dalrymple-Philibert to remain. “I am here to give support to my MP, a hard-working MP, a MP who would take prescription from the [constituency] office and take it to Runaway Bay and fill it and find your house with the medication. If she hear you are in the hospital, she visits the hospital; if she hear that you have somebody dead she will come and give her support. She has sent so much people to school. She is always here; she has never changed her phone number since she has been in Trelawny. Anybody can call that MP — it speaks volumes,” Gibson told the Jamaica Observer. One man who gave his name as Hombre Dawkins simply asked Dalrymple-Philibert to serve out the term. “She is one of the best Members of Parliament out of the 63. She has done so much for South Trelawny. The Integrity Commission [IC] never say she stole any money; all the IC say is she did not add it [motor vehicle] to her asset declaration. We stand here today in support of her and we want her to remain as Member of Parliament, at least until the next general election which is due in 2025,” he urged. Dalrymple-Philibert stepped aside as Speaker of the House and MP last week after a ruling by the IC’s director of corruption prosecution, Keisha Prince-Kameka, that she be charged with four counts of making a false statement in breach of the Parliament (Integrity of Members) Act, 1973 in her statutory declaration for the periods ending December 31, 2015, February 25, 2016, December 31, 2016, and December 31, 2017; and four counts of breaching the Integrity Commission Act, 2017 for making a false statement for the periods ending December 31, 2018, December 31, 2019, September 3, 2020, and December 31, 2020. The ruling was included in an IC investigation report which also saw the commission’s director of investigation, Kevon Stephenson, recommending that the report be referred to the prime minister “for him to take such disciplinary and/or administrative actions which both recognises the seriousness of Mrs Dalrymple-Philibert’s conduct” and to deter recurrence. Additionally, Stephenson said he found that Dalrymple-Philibert had breached Section 36 of the Customs Act and recommended that his report be referred to the commissioner of customs to recover the duties paid on the vehicle and to apply “such penalties as the commissioner may deem to be appropriate”. Stephenson also recommended that the report be referred to the financial secretary in order to recover allowances paid to the House Speaker in relation to the vehicle. However, shortly after the report was tabled, Dalrymple-Philibert issued a statement explaining that she had forgotten to include the motor vehicle, which was primarily used by her sister, in her declarations. She said she was surprised at the conclusion reached by the commission, given that she has “always filed [her] statutory declarations and have done so in a timely and transparent manner”. In a statement announcing her resignation “with immediate effect” Dalrymple-Philibert reiterated that she had nothing to hide and “did not knowingly mislead the Integrity Commission, it was a genuine oversight”. On Monday, from about 10:00 am, scores of JLP supporters, mostly clad in the party’s colour, green, streamed into the business hub of Albert Town holding aloft placards plastered with messages urging the woman they call Mama D to reconsider her decision to step away. Some of the placards had messages such as ‘We a cry, we a bawl; come back’; ‘Mama, we need you’; ‘The backbone of South Trelawny’; ‘We need Mama D, we need you back’; ‘Mad we a mad out’. Cheers from the chanting, horn-tooting Labourites increased as each convoy of vehicles, including Toyota Coaster buses loaded with party supporters, wormed their way into Albert Town Square. By noon the square was jam-packed. As the day progressed there was a party-like atmosphere at the community centre as those gathered gyrated to the sound of reggae booming from speaker boxes set up in the square.

Alexander Shaw, the attorney representing the sole woman convicted for being a member of the deadly Klansman gang, on Monday painted a picture of her as a rejected wife, a mother pained by her inability to see her teenaged daughter in high school uniform, and a woman still involved in ministering the ‘Gospel’ inside prison. Making his plea in mitigation before trial judge Chief Justice Bryan Sykes during the sentencing exercise for Stephanie Cole-Christie and 14 other convicted gangsters at the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston on Monday, Shaw said his client has “somewhat been ostracised”. Arguing for a light sentence of two to three years for his client, who is otherwise called Mumma, and who already has five other convictions, the attorney declared that Cole-Christie has already been punished, having been rejected by her husband, who “doesn’t want anything to do with her”. “She has been hearing prison gates closing behind her for the last four years, and I submit that is enough to act as a deterrent… Mrs Christie is 48 years old, she is not a pup… notwithstanding the fact that she is the eldest in the gang, as the evidence unfolded there were instances when she would invite her friends to church. The truth is, there was a constant struggle because, though she was at church, she found herself being part of a negative social group,” he said. According to Shaw, Cole-Christie has expressed “how depressive it is to be locked away from her young daughter” and has talked about having “suicidal thoughts”. He said the interviewer who prepared Cole-Christie’s social enquiry report “tried to make contact with her husband who doesn’t want anything to do with her or this court matter”. He further said Cole-Christie was needed by her ailing mother who is elderly and had been cared for by his client before her incarceration. He said his client, who was making a meaningful contribution to society as an entrepreneur and community member, is “still involved in ministry, is on the choir and helps in the kitchen [at the remand centre]”. According to Shaw, his client, from behind the walls of the prison, is still trying to make things better. In March this year Cole-Christie was found guilty of being a member of the notorious criminal organisation. Cole-Christie, said to be a top-tier member of the gang, at the time in a fervently delivered unsworn statement had described herself as a “businesswoman and entrepreneur” who is “known by many as a people person”. She had claimed that her only modus operandi was caring for the elderly and young people by getting them into schools. She told the court that she also spearheaded community sports days and a major get-together which was so recognised it attracted sponsorship from several big-name companies. However, Witness Number Two, a former gang member turned State witness, had asserted that Cole-Christie was the link between the police force and the gang and was the one to source legal representation whenever a gang member ran afoul of the law. Cole-Christie, it was said, bankrolled legal fees from extortion monies. Justice Sykes, in convicting the so-called pastor, had referred to recorded conversations which had been entered into evidence, featuring her in conversation with the witness during which she spoke of a corrupt cop who fed her with information. That, Justice Sykes said, was consistent with the evidence of a police witness who said Cole-Christie had tried to bribe him. On Monday, Cole-Christie — resplendent in a pink flowing outfit, fresh braids framing her small face — sat quietly, her well-made-up face a study in concentration. The matter resumes today at 10:00 am when the attorneys will continue their plea in mitigation addresses. The convicted Klansman members, to be sentenced alongside leader Andre “Blackman” Bryan and Cole-Christie are: Michael Whitely, Dylon McLean, Lamar Simpson, Tareek James, Fabian Johnson, Jahzeel Blake, Roel Taylor, Joseph McDermott, Jermaine Robinson, Andrae Golding, Tomrick Taylor, Brian Morris, and Ted Prince. The Crown, in opening its case on September 20, 2021, said the accused individuals — which comprise the ‘Blackman faction’ of the Klansman gang — had various roles in which they acted as “killers, drivers, lookout men or watchmen, gunsmiths and foot soldiers”.

The sentencing exercise for Robert Benoit, the Caucasian American who was in March this year convicted in the St James Circuit Court for having intercourse with a 12-year-old girl after she was handed over to him by her father for transactional sex, was on Friday postponed after he became boisterous and demanded a new lawyer. The incident has resulted in his former attorney Christopher Townsend expressing concern about the man’s mental state following his conduct on Friday. The 59-year-old Benoit, who was unanimously declared guilty by a jury comprising five men and two women following their deliberations in March, had at the time declared that “corruption” and racism had a part in his verdict. Friday when the matter was called up, Benoit again ranted resulting in his attorney Townsend making an application to withdraw his representation. “Unfortunately, he seemed to have lost confidence in my ability to represent him and I am most concerned actually about his state of mind. He seemed to have been talking a lot and saying all kinds of things in the courtroom to the point where the judge had difficulty controlling him and so that having been the case, I was constrained to make an application to withdraw from the matter,” Townsend told the Jamaica Observer. “That application was upheld by the learned judge who saw the circumstances. He had expressed a desire for a particular counsel to represent him. I made contact with the counsel and hopefully on the next occasion when the matter will be brought to Kingston that counsel will be able to adequately represent him,” Townsend said further. Benoit, the Observer understands, is to be sentenced at the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston on Friday, September 29, 2023. Based on the evidence unveiled in the matter, the incident took place in December 2020, two days before Christmas. According to Benoit, who is a regular visitor to the island, he was in the community to give care packages to people there. The girl’s mother said in her evidence that she was responsible for taking care of Benoit’s rented home in the area and so would go there to cook and clean for him. She, however, denied knowing what transpired between him and her child. According to prosecutors, on the night of December 23, Benoit visited the family’s home. According to the child, she was instructed by her father to spend the night with the then 57-year-old man and “bring back the money”. She said right after that statement was made to her, Benoit bought her father a bottle of Magnum and left with her. The young girl said that night while she was at his house, she was awakened from sleep by Benoit who was atop her. She said the man had intercourse with her. The following morning police, acting on information, showed up at the residence in search of Benoit. When he finally emerged from the dwelling the young girl told the police that he had been inside “trying to hide” her. When asked if she was in a relationship with him, she remained silent, but when asked if they had had sex, she nodded her head, at which point Benoit exclaimed “Oh God, man” and started “sweating profusely”. He was subsequently arrested and charged for sex with a person under 16. The child’s father, the Observer learnt, was hauled before the Family Court to answer to child abuse charges. The now 14-year-old child is in the custody of the State.

Eight of the biggest European reggae festivals have warned of a dim future for the Jamaican music, citing a huge 50 per cent drop in audiences combining with skyrocketing artiste fees, up to three times previous rates, in the face of a growing preference for other genres of music on the continent. A staunch ally of reggae — the music that was spawned in the sprawling slums of western Kingston — Europe stages 15 reggae festivals annually since the 1970s, emerging as a staple for every major act from Jamaica who can depend on the usually well-attended concerts for critical earnings. “We can’t ignore the elephant in the room: Audience attendance at dedicated reggae festivals is declining. Outside the festival season, there are fewer venue shows played by reggae artistes. They don’t tour as intensively as they used to,” the eight said in an unprecedented joint statement Saturday. “At the same time, the fees proposed have skyrocketed and don’t reflect the potential audience attraction artistes generate. As a result, promoters are obligated to pay fees that are not proportionate to ticket sales, resulting in exploding artistic budgets and increased operational costs,” they said. Among the most telling findings by the festival organisers is that, “Since the pandemic, new styles like Afrobeat, trap, and urban are conquering the new generation audience with strong marketing campaigns and replacing in most countries’ spots historically belonging to reggae and dancehall”. The reggae promoters met 18 days ago in Benicassim, Spain, home of one of the biggest reggae festivals, to assess the future of the music and search for solutions, in order to craft “a common approach to safeguard the future of reggae music on the European continent”. The eight organisations at the meeting were: Rototom Sunsplash (Spain); Summerjam Festival (Germany); Reggae Geel (Belgium); No Logo BZH (France); Reggae Sundance (the Netherlands); Uppsala Reggae Festival (Sweden); Reggae Lake Festival (the Netherlands) and Uprising Festival (Slovakia). “We’re all in this together; we’re working hard to promote the music we love dearly, and we are sure addressing these issues is the way forward in the years to come. We’re confident that other reggae festivals in Europe will be ready to join in,” the joint statement said. The dispatch was issued over the signature of Danielle Pater, artistic director of Reggae Geel, who is no stranger to Jamaica, taking the trek annually to the island to recruit for her festival, described as the closest in resemblance to a Jamaican event. Named after the city in which it is held, Reggae Geel itself marked its 45th anniversary last month when it announced as the featured artistes the likes of Burning Spear, Tarrus Riley, Marcia Griffiths, Lone Ranger, Tanya Stephens, Kabaka Pyramid, Micah Shemaiah, Yaksta, Johnny Osbourne, Mr Vegas, Chi Ching Ching, Richie Spice, and Jesse Royal. Queried by the Jamaica Observer, Pater said festivals which usually drew between 7,000 and 20,000 patrons per day had seen their numbers plummet by an average of 50 per cent per day, compared to the previous editions. “Without going into details, we can easily say that after COVID, the fees from numerous artistes doubled or, in some cases, even tripled,” she told the Observer. The festival organisers described their deliberations as “lively, productive, and positive discussions rooted in a joint commitment to build a European reggae scene for the future”, noting that they had launched the idea of starting a European Reggae Festival Association. The statement said: “This association could be an idea-sharing platform, focusing on shared challenges: • promoting dialogue between festivals and artistes on the current market situation. • facilitating collaborations between Europe’s reggae festivals. • help artistes to build their live audience more actively instead of only their online following, by joint support. • design specific joint actions to support reggae music. •find agreements, settlements, and regulations with major principles with artistes/management and festival/promoters, based on professionalism, quality, and liability, and to share the principles of unity, solidarity, and respect.” It added: “Better organisational capabilities, working together more closely, and professionalising our cherished scene are crucial for future success. By coming together, reasoning on our shared challenges and future, and stipulating plans of approach, we want to set a higher bar and give reggae music the future and audience attendance it deserves.” Over the years, other top draws for the festivals have included Bunny Wailer; Desmond Dekker and the Aces; Freddie McGregor; Ziggy Marley; Barrington Levy; Third World; Sugar Minott; Stone Love; Max Romeo; U-Roy; Lady Saw, as well as big reggae names from other countries which have embraced the music.

MONTEGO BAY, St James — The man who was being groomed by the Opposition to face Marisa Dalrymple Philibert in Trelawny Southern, next general election, wants to go into battle now. Bring on a by-election is what businessman Fabion Davis is chanting, as he hopes to capitalise on the misfortune of the then incumbent who quit as MP for the constituency, as well as Speaker of the House of Representatives on Thursday. Dalrymple Philibert resigned from the posts amid mounting pressure in relation to the eight charges laid against her by the Integrity Commission last week. Davis was given the nod to represent the party in the next general election during a selection exercise at the PNP’s Trelawny Southern conference at Albert Town High School in the parish last month. He told the Jamaica Observer that he has been doing the legwork. “I have been in the constituency. I have been doing my walks and I have been doing the work while putting the machinery together for an election. Whether it is a by-election or a general election, I am on my way,” said Davis. For Davis, the vision for Trelawny Southern is simply to focus on improving the lives of those residing in the mainly rural constituency. He told the Sunday Observer that the implementation of a proper system of supplying running water in the area would be an ideal start. “My vision for South Trelawny is to get back running water in the pipes in order for the farmers to engage in the cash crop programmes that they have at RADA,” said Davis. The MP candidate stated that the farmers living in the rural constituency have been dealt a “bad hand” as without running water, they have been suffering huge losses. At the same time, the businessman said that he intends to assist farmers in Trelawny Southern improve their entrepreneurial skills. “This is a farming area and they mostly farm yam, which is a one year thing. After that, farmers dead fi hungry, you know? Those farmers are really skilled to be alive now in south Trelawny, so I really want to help them get water so that they can be involved in cash crops and get money right throughout the year. I need to turn these farmers into entrepreneurs,” Davis said. In addition to that, the MP candidate said that improvement of Ulster Spring Health Centre will be a major project undertaken were he to become the elected representative. Roads, too, are on Davis’s list of things to tackle in the rural constituency. “I am looking to upgrade the health centre in Ulster Spring. They have fixed the main roads, but they are now going back to a deplorable condition — that would be one of my main focuses too,” he said. “There are some other roads that would help [motorists] to detour in case there is a major accident on the main. Right now, if you have a major accident there is nowhere to go, so those roads will be addressed,” Davis added. The businessman, who is also listed by the PNP as councillor candidate for the Duncans Division (Trelawny Northern) in the Trelawny Municipal Corporation, told the Sunday Observer that he is fully committed to stepping up to the plate in Trelawny. According to him, he is a son of the soil who has always been passionate about his parish. He said that he became a member of the PNP in 2017 and has since worked alongside the party to build confidence in the people of Trelawny. “I am presently the chairman for the Duncans Division, and also the candidate for the local government election there as well. I started my political journey in North Trelawny and I have been working assiduously with my team there. I have learned a lot in North Trelawny politics, so it has prepared me to do the job as a Member of Parliament,” said Davis, who was born in Clark’s Town in the north, and attended Holmwood Technical High School in Manchester. “I have always been in love with South Trelawny and I had a business there in 2005. I am also involved in music and I used to go there to play music, so I know a lot of people there — I am not a stranger. Being in love with this constituency and strongly believing in farming, I realised that this is where we need to go now based on what is happening. I really want to help these people as farmers, help to grow the constituency, and do things that will attract young people,” the MP candidate added. Davis, in a follow-up statement on Saturday, hailed the work of the former MP, but maintained that a change was necessary. “I’d like to express thanks to Marisa Dalrymple Philibert for her service to the people of South Trelawny. Public service is no small task, and her contribution must be recognised. “However, it is with a heavy heart that I acknowledge the circumstances surrounding her resignation as Speaker of the House and as the Member of Parliament for South Trelawny. We had hoped that she would have demitted office guided by her own conscience, but it became evident that public pressure, starting with the PNP’s walkout from Parliament in protest of her conduct, forced her hand. “The situation is deeply regrettable, and it brings great disappointment to South Trelawny to have one of its Members of Parliament forced out of office under these circumstances. As representatives of the people, we must uphold the highest ethical standards, and any departure from these standards is a disservice to our constituents and our nation. “The People’s National Party remains steadfast in our commitment to the people of South Trelawny. We have been working diligently to ensure that the constituency would receive the best possible representation in due course, and Marisa’s premature departure from office only accelerates our timetable to provide South Trelawny with the strong and ethical representation it deserves,”

CUBA is prepared to supply more teachers to prop up the shortage of Jamaica’s classroom talent if the Ministry of Education needs, the socialist country’s senior envoy in Kingston has said. Ambassador Fermin Quinones Sanchez told the Jamaica Observer in an interview last week, that Cuba stands ready to assist Jamaica if or when the Government requires that kind of support. The local education system has been in roller coaster mode following the exit of over an estimated 1,000 teachers in the current academic year, most of them for lucrative jobs overseas, in particular the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the Middle East. The Ministry of Education has said that the situation is under control although the reality is, day after day, school officials have been reporting late resignations, which have affected the rhythmic functioning of institutions. The ministry also said that several teachers who had before applied for extensive vacation leave, some for up to eight months, had put that on hold in order to reduce the shortage in schools. Now, Quinones Sanchez said that Cuba, which has over 100 teachers in the local system, can do much more to assist the Jamaican cause. “Of course. There is no limitation from Cuba’s side about any request that would be made by the Jamaican Government and the Ministry of Education to continue supporting the education sector,” the diplomat said. “There are possibilities to bring new teachers from Cuba, not only teachers in Spanish — because the great majority of teachers are teaching Spanish in Jamaican public schools — but there are possibilities for bringing more teachers in science, which is the other area where they are working in Jamaica now.” Quinones Sanchez said that his country, located north of Jamaica, would also be able to help improve Jamaica’s special needs capacity, if required. There have been concerns that some schools at the primary and secondary level often fall short in handling children with special needs, even though — in terms of infrastructure — some progress has been made in the physical improvement of some institutions. “We mentioned sometime ago to the Jamaican Government of the possibility to expand the cooperation of the bilateral agreement to tackle some special needs of children with certain disabilities that need some kind of support,” the ambassador continued. “Cuba has been developing special needs skills over many, many years, and now we have teachers who are well prepared to work with children with special needs. Cuba is ready to participate in such a programme if it is the request, of course, by the Jamaican Government.” In The Bahamas alone, Cuba has over 150 special needs teachers working with children of that popular tourist destination. “A programme is in place in The Bahamas and it has been having very good results,” Quinones Sanchez said. “Now, we are in the process of expanding educational cooperation to different areas.” Last week the education ministry said in a statement that 1,155 teachers had joined the sector in time for the new school year. Minister Fayval Williams was quoted in the statement as saying that with the sudden resignation of scores of teachers and the employment of new teachers at short notice, the ministry had to “implement new mechanisms to ensure that new teachers are paid in the month of September. “Under normal circumstances, for a teacher to be paid in a particular month, the employment documents must be submitted by the last working day of the previous month. For example, to be paid in September, all relevant employment documents must be submitted to the ministry by the last working day in the month of August. “However, given that many of the new teachers were employed this month [September], the ministry extended the deadline for submission to September 12 and deployed the accounting staff to work overtime and on weekends to process the submissions. “The ministry received a total of 782 new teachers’ files on or before the September 12, 2023 deadline. Of this total, 624 new teachers’ files were processed and 158 new teachers’ files were deemed incomplete because they did not meet the required standard to enable payment,” Williams said. She said, too, that 373 new teachers’ files were submitted after the extended deadline of September 12. Cuban is renowned for not only assisting Jamaica in the provision of teachers, but offering scholarships (mainly medical) to Jamaican students. The education sector aside, the popular Jamaica/Cuba Eye Care Programme is also one from which hundreds of Jamaicans have benefited since the time it was based in Havana, the Cuban capital city, to when it moved to Jamaica with adequate personnel functioning from National Chest Hospital, and St Joseph’s Hospital. The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic called a halt to the proceedings in 2021, however, but plans are well advanced to go back to full throttle after a phased resumption of services at Kingston Public Hospital in west Kingston. “The Cuban team arrived in Jamaica on July 28 and in only one month they, through hard work, prepared about 150 Jamaicans for cataract surgery,” Quinones Sanchez said. “They recognise that the Jamaican population needs this kind of service, hence 150 consultations in the first month. An area at St Joseph’s Hospital will house the main portion of the resumed activities, but this is still under renovation. It is expected that the programme will fully resume by the start November . “It is the great commitment of the Cuban Government to continue supporting Jamaica in health-care matters. I said one year ago that it was a very important objective of the Cuban Government to resume the eye care programme in Jamaica as a legacy, because it is important for the most vulnerable population of Jamaica … people coming from different places all over the country because they need this kind of high-quality services provided by the Cubans, working with the Jamaican Ministry of Health,” Quinones Sanchez said. “This is something that makes us very proud. We have been

Calls are again mounting for Integrity Commission (IC) Executive Director Greg Christie to resign from that body, this time over his “ask the Government” retort to journalists who solicited his feedback to Thursday’s gun attack on Ryan Evans, the commission’s director of corruption prevention, outside the agency’s New Kingston office. Christie’s response, which came ahead of indications by the police that robbery was the motive for the attack — as a briefcase that Evans was carrying was taken in the incident — has been seen as politically biased and inflammatory by several individuals. On Friday, distinguished attorney Peter Champagnie, King’s Counsel, described Christie’s comment as reckless and said he should resign. Equally, the Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal (JAMP), in a statement issued to the media, said Christie’s position was “untenable” and called for him to step aside. “We appreciate that the work the commission does on all our behalf can and does present considerable strain for its staff, and we also appreciate that this has been further exacerbated by reported threats over time as well as a hostile commentary emanating from our parliamentarians,” JAMP’s Executive Director Jeanette Calder said, adding that Thursday’s shooting incident could only have served to heighten the stressful environment in which the IC staff work. She however noted that, while JAMP felt deepest regret and sympathies for the troubling attack on the commission’s director, “the comments of its executive director were highly unacceptable and irresponsible”. “Of particular note is the wide variance between Mr Christie’s comment and the commission’s official position of ‘no comment’ pending investigation,” Calder said. “Impartiality, as well as the appearance of impartiality, are the gold standard and currency for the very crucial work the commission performs on our behalf. We are of the considered view that the commission’s statement of apology on behalf of its executive director is an inadequate response, given the extent to which we believe Mr Christie’s response has further compromised the confidence of many Jamaicans and undermined that element of impartiality that is vital to achieving their objectives,” she said. According to JAMP, Christie should resign in the interest of both the Integrity Commission that he has served since May 2020 and the anti-corruption cause that he has fought for over two decades. Champagnie’s call came in a biting letter to the editor of the Jamaica Observer. Noting that it was expected that parliamentarians be biased in their public pronouncements in favour of their political parties, Champagnie said gatekeepers of national integrity exhibiting bias must be rejected. “Mr Christie, when asked… by a reporter what his thoughts were about the unfortunate shooting of one of the commission’s officers, responded by saying that the reporter should ask the Government that question. This response is reckless and betrays the very core function of what the Integrity Commission ought to represent. It provides fodder for those who would want to suggest that our Integrity Commission is politically biased,” Champagnie said. Pointing out the indications by cops that the shooting attack sprung from a robbery, Champagnie said, “Mr Christie’s utterance therefore must be condemned in the strongest possible terms and does not augur well for good governance in Jamaica. Recent precedent has now been set as to what is expected of public officials in the face of an accusation of less-than-acceptable standards. Mr Christie would be well advised to follow suit and resign.” According to Champagnie, civil society “must insist” upon the resignation and not “only reserve the exercise of their vocal cords for politicians”. “It must insist on Mr Christie’s resignation. Politicians themselves, on both sides of the aisle, must be unified in this position. They must not be hypocritical, as many have been by refusing to concede to the fact that the strict usage of duty-free concession licences is more honoured in the breach than the observance. That this is so provides no justification of any deviation of what should be obtained in law. However, one should not politicise this matter beyond what it is. Not everything should exhibit political bias, akin to Mr Christie’s comments. Time come. Time come for Mr Christie to resign,” Champagnie declared. Also on Friday, Young Jamaica, the youth arm of the Jamaica Labour Party, said Christie’s remarks “intimating that the Government had any involvement in the incident are not only speculative but also highly irresponsible”. “In a time when it is crucial to uphold the principles of transparency, accountability, and fairness, Mr Christie’s premature conclusions without any supporting evidence have raised serious doubts about his ability to carry out his duties impartially,” Young Jamaica President Rohan Walsh said in a statement to the media. “We repeat our call from February 2023 for Mr Greg Christie to resign immediately from his position as executive director of the Integrity Commission or, alternatively, urge the Integrity Commission board to take necessary actions to remove him from his duties. We believe that his recent actions and the inflammatory statements he made have severely undermined the public’s trust and confidence in the Integrity Commission’s ability to carry out its duties without bias or malice,” the youth arm said. In February this year Government senators called for Christie’s resignation or removal over the commission’s handling of the findings of a probe into conflict of interest allegations against Prime Minister Andrew Holness. The commission came under fire for allowing its findings in the probe — including the referral of Holness for possible criminal sanction in relation to the awarding of Government contracts 14 years ago — to be tabled in Parliament without information that the prime minister had eventually been exonerated in the matter more than a month earlier by the commission’s director of corruption prosecution. Additionally, Christie’s retweet of a media report on the investigation without reference to the ruling added more fuel to the fire. Those events resulted in JLP General Secretary Dr Horace Chang — who is also the deputy prime minister and minister of national security — issuing a release stating that his party had lost

MINISTER of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton has underscored Jamaica’s commitment to tobacco control as more young people fall prey to the drug and the world faces a ballooning noncommunicable (NCDs) diseases crisis. “The challenges to human and environmental health that tobacco presents are well documented and significant. This is the case globally and certainly as we consider the Jamaica situation,” noted Tufton on Tuesday as he addressed a high-level Tobacco Free Finance Pledge side event, held during the United Nations General Assembly in New York, United States. “Annually, more than eight million people lose their lives to tobacco use. In Jamaica, as elsewhere in the world, we have a NCDs epidemic, fuelled in part by tobacco use. More than 70 per cent of deaths in Jamaica annually are linked to NCDs,” added Tufton. According to the health minister, it is against this background that Jamaica is determined to do all it can to get a firm handle on tobacco control, including addressing the high prevalence of tobacco use among local youth, including e-cigarette use and vaping. He noted that in 2017 approximately one in seven (14.9 per cent) of Jamaica’s children aged 13-17 reported smoking cigarettes, while almost two-thirds (67.4 per cent) aged 13-17 reported that persons smoked in their presence on one or more days within the past week. Tufton further pointed out that, also in 2017, 11.7 per cent of students reported using e-cigarettes while 32.1 per cent were exposed to tobacco smoke at home, and 48.2 per cent inside enclosed public places. “These statistics are a clarion call to comprehensive, sustained, and collaborative actions,” said Tufton. He pointed out that Jamaica’s efforts to tackle these issues include passing legislation to adequately regulate the tobacco industry. “In 2020 I tabled the Tobacco Control Act, 2020 in Parliament and it is currently being considered by a joint select committee, which I chair. The passage of the Bill will allow Jamaica to be fully compliant with its treaty obligations under the WHO [World Health Organization] Framework Convention on Tobacco Control [FCTC]. It will also protect Jamaicans, including children and the vulnerable, from the harmful and addictive effects of tobacco use,” said Tufton. He pointed out that, among other things, the Bill includes provisions for the regulation of interactions of government officials with the tobacco industry, to ensure that government bodies interact with the tobacco industry only when and to the extent — and only when strictly necessary — to enable them to effectively regulate the tobacco industry and tobacco products. It also requires testing and measurement of the contents and emissions of tobacco products; provisions for the disclosure of information on toxic substances to the public; and speaks to the promotion of communication and public awareness of tobacco control issues, and about the health risks of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke. Tufton said these efforts build on collaboration and support from entities including Pan American Health Organization and the WHO FCTC Secretariat, together with having national focal points, a multi-sectoral Tobacco Technical Working Group coordinating mechanism, and strong civil society support. “Of course, there continues to be persistent direct and indirect interference by the tobacco industry — as documented by the Jamaica Coalition for Tobacco Control — however, we are not daunted,” said Tufton. “We have a big job on our hands to preserve human health and the health of the environment from tobacco. I am confident that working together, we can get it done — including through the continued engagement and partnership of players from the finance sector in support of the transition to a net-zero world where tobacco has no place,” added Tufton. More focus on tobacco control will come on Monday, which will be marked as World Lung Day. The theme this year is ‘Access to prevention and treatment for all. Leave no one behind’.

In the space of half an hour on Thursday afternoon, mounting criticism transformed into approval after Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert bowed to public pressure by tendering her resignation as Speaker of the House of Representatives and Member of Parliament (MP). But even as public commentators said the embattled politician did the honourable thing, they continued to scold Dalrymple-Philibert for the manner in which she handled the tabling in Parliament of an Integrity Commission (IC) report containing a ruling that she be slapped with eight charges in relation to her statutory declarations. “I think she has done the right thing in the circumstances. The way that that thing was handled in Parliament was just not the right way to do it,” Robert Stephens, co-chairman of Advocates Network Jamaica, said. “The fact is that, whether MPs or public servants, or people in high places in the private sector…are accused of something and are involved as a major player in something, you recuse yourself and you allow other people to deal with it, and that would have been fine. But instead, she basically was very arrogant, and arrogance is not what we need in this country right now. What we need are people with some level of humility and understanding,” he said. Eminent church leader Reverend Dr Peter Garth agreed that Dalrymple-Philibert made the right decision to step down, saying that she was in a very awkward position. “If she did not resign, the prime minister himself would have been in a very precarious position,” Rev Garth told the Jamaica Observer. Rev Garth, who is immediate past president of the Jamaica Evangelical Alliance, argued that it was “just untenable” for Dalrymple-Philibert to have continued in her capacity as House Speaker and he believes that “from day one, she should have stepped aside”. “I think all well-thinking Jamaicans are happy about the decision, because perception can so often be seen as more real than reality,” he added. He also argued that Dalrymple-Philibert should not have tabled the IC report in Parliament herself. “She should have stepped aside and allowed somebody else to speak, and I think it sent a wrong message to the country. In fact, when the leader of the Opposition was not allowed to speak it sent a signal that was not good,” he said. Garth’s reference was to Tuesday’s sitting of the House when Dalrymple-Philibert tabled the report, saying that she decided to do so “to ensure that there is no accusation of conflict of interest” and to prove that she had “absolutely nothing to hide”. She had also refused to entertain a question from Opposition Leader Mark Golding on the issue, resulting in Golding and the other members of the Opposition walking out of the Chamber. Dalrymple-Philibert has been subjected to public scrutiny since the IC investigation report stated that she had failed to declare in her statutory filings a motor vehicle she had purchased through a concession afforded to legislators. The commission’s director of corruption prosecution, Keisha Prince-Kameka, ruled that Dalrymple-Philibert be charged with four counts of making a false statement in breach of the Parliament (Integrity of Members) Act, 1973 in her statutory declaration for the periods ending December 31, 2015, February 25, 2016, December 31, 2016, and December 31, 2017; and four counts of breaching the Integrity Commission Act, 2017 for making a false statement for the periods ending December 31, 2018, December 31, 2019, September 3, 2020, and December 31, 2020. Additionally, the commission’s director of investigation, Kevon Stephenson, recommended that the report be referred to the prime minister “for him to take such disciplinary and/or administrative actions which both recognises the seriousness of Mrs Dalrymple-Philibert’s conduct” and to deter recurrence. Further, Stephenson said he found that Dalrymple-Philibert had breached Section 36 of the Customs Act and recommended that his report be referred to the commissioner of customs to recover the duties paid on the vehicle and to apply “such penalties as the commissioner may deem to be appropriate”. Stephenson also recommended that the report be referred to the financial secretary in order to recover allowances paid to the House Speaker in relation to the vehicle. However, shortly after the report was tabled, Dalrymple-Philibert issued a statement explaining that she had forgotten to include the motor vehicle, which was primarily used by her sister, in her declarations. She said she was surprised at the conclusion reached by the commission, given that she has “always filed [her] statutory declarations and have done so in a timely and transparent manner”. But the revelation prompted calls from several quarters for Dalrymple-Philibert to resign. On Wednesday, National Integrity Action, Jamaican Accountability Portal, and the Advocates Network, in a joint statement, demanded that she resign immediately from her position as Speaker. According to the entities, “it is undemocratic for the Speaker to preside over the hearing relating to a report about her conduct”. On Thursday, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) and the Jamaica Council of Churches (JCC) added the voices to the strong calls for Dalrymple-Philibert to step down. “This is the right course of action, given the circumstances. We continue to be committed to transparency and would like to stress that this will be our stance regarding any named public official who has been charged,” said the PSOJ. The group — which represents more than 300 companies, associations and individuals — said while it notes the ongoing discussions surrounding the investigations and reports by the IC, there is an absolute necessity for good governance practices to be upheld by all members of Jamaica’s political directorate, irrespective of their party affiliation or standing. Equally, the JCC said that, in the interest of natural justice, the Speaker should be recused from further deliberations of the House until the cloud of suspicion which presently hangs over her head has been fully and fairly addressed. “We continue to hold firmly to the principle that a person is innocent until proven guilty and adjure the nation to treat this matter and the Speaker with

THE police moved swiftly Thursday to calm jitters when it reported that the shooting and injury of Ryan Evans, director of corruption and prevention at the Integrity Commission (IC), was a robbery – after early speculation that it could be an attack for his work at the commission. The gunman, who shot the IC official in one of his arms, robbed him of a briefcase he was carrying. Despite his injury Evans, according to a source, was able to drive himself to a hospital. The incident occurred in the parking in front of Jamaica Football Federation’s offices in New Kingston, St Andrew, which is located near the offices of the Integrity Commission on St Lucia Avenue. News of the incident sparked widespread condemnation from the political directorate, business sector, and civil society. However, Deputy Commissioner of Police Fitz Bailey, who is in charge of the crime portfolio, by mid-afternoon reported that the motive was robbery, which immediately served to calm fears that the public official was attacked because of his role in helping to stamp out corruption in the public sector. “Our preliminary investigation revealed that Mr Evans went to a financial institution in Liguanea where he made a significant withdrawal and then drove to his office. He exited his motor [car] and two men rode up on a bike, pulled a firearm, and demanded a briefcase that Mr Evans had. The gunman actually pointed a firearm to his head. A struggle ensued and Mr Evans was shot in his arm and the briefcase taken by the robbers, and they left. We believe that the motive is robbery,” DCP Bailey said. The Government issued a statement on Thursday condemning the attack, describing it as shocking incident. “The Government is deeply concerned about this incident, and our thoughts and prayers are with the injured director and family at this time. The Integrity Commission plays a crucial role in upholding the principles of transparency, accountability, and integrity within our nation. Any act of violence directed at individuals serving in such critical roles is an affront to the values that our democracy stands for,” said a Jamaica House statement. “The Government has full confidence in the law enforcement agencies’ ability to swiftly investigate this matter and bring those responsible to justice. We urge the public to cooperate with the authorities in their efforts to ensure a thorough and transparent investigation… Such incidents should not deter those committed to serving our nation with honesty and integrity. The Government of Jamaica remains committed to supporting the work of the Integrity Commission and will take all necessary steps to ensure the safety and security of its staff,” the statement said further. The Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) also condemned the attack and called for swift investigations. “We call on the law enforcement agencies to conduct a swift and thorough investigation into this matter. We also call on the authorities to provide additional security for the members of the Integrity Commission as they fight corruption on behalf of the people of Jamaica, including close protection officers when appropriate. “We understand the fear and uncertainty they may be experiencing. We want to encourage the members and staff of the Integrity Commission to remain steadfast in the face of these attacks and not be weary in doing good. We emphasise our unwavering commitment to ensuring that the work of the Integrity Commission continues unhindered, free from any threats or intimidation,” the PNP said in a statement. The Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, in a press release, said that it vehemently condemns “this heinous act and express our utmost concern for the safety and security of all individuals who are dedicated to upholding the principles of transparency and accountability within our nation”.

JURY problems escalated on Wednesday in the murder trial of Everton “Beachy Stout” McDonald and his co-accused, Oscar Barnes, in the Home Circuit Court in Kingston, forcing the trial to be adjourned and the seven members discharged from the jury which was empanelled on Monday. The matter should resume next Monday when a new set of jurors is to be selected. McDonald and Barnes are being tried for the July 20, 2020 murder of Tonia McDonald, who was Everton’s second wife. The partially burnt body of Tonia was found slumped beside her razed motor car on the Sherwood Forest main road in Portland, with her throat slashed. On Monday, at the start of the trial, two men who were selected to be a part of the jury refused to swear on the Bible or affirm that they would do nothing to compromise the case. One of them blatantly refused and told the judge that he would not swear on the Bible because of his religious beliefs and he also refused to give an affirmation, claiming he was of the view that he would still be swearing. Presiding Judge Chester Stamp discharged the two men and indicated that both of them would face punishment. The two men were replaced immediately on Monday morning and the trial got under way with the first witness, a former employee of Everton, taking the stand to give testimony. But on Tuesday there was another jury challenge, forcing the trial to be stalled when juror number four did not turn up for court. The court learned that he had serious monetary problems and could no longer participate in the process. His claims were validated by the court’s registry and on Wednesday when he appeared in court he was discharged. Justice Stamp also discharged juror number two, who, it was proven, is employed overseas and cannot be absent from his job for the roughly two months that the trial is expected to last. Attorney-at-law Christopher Townsend, who is a member of the legal team representing Everton, told the Jamaica Observer that the two jurors have problems that are insurmountable and were in no shape to properly serve. However, he said it was just a minor setback. “The judge conferred with the defence and prosecution and we all were in agreement that this was the course of action to be taken. We restart next Monday when the evidence will be reheard and all of what occurred before will commence again. It is a setback, in terms of the time lost, but I believe that all persons who are in the matter are dedicated to seeing the matter through. So, we are wasting no time in terms of restarting and commencing of the hearing of the evidence again,” Townsend said. Ernest Davis, the lawyer who is representing Oscar Barnes, on Wednesday appealed to Justice Stamp to again grant his client bail. Prior to the start of the trial on Monday, Barnes had been out on bail since 2021. However, when he showed up for the trial on Monday the judge revoked his bail. According to Davis, his client got married on Sunday and his wife had not been able to spend time with him. Davis appealed to Stamp to give consideration next Monday to his client being released on bail again. Although the prosecution recommended that he remain in custody, Justice Stamp said he will make a decision come Monday of next week.

FORMER Speaker of the House of Representatives and retired parliamentarian Pearnel Charles Sr says the law should be allowed to take its course in the current maelstrom surrounding his successor, Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert. Dalrymple-Philibert is under pressure following an Integrity Commission ruling that she be charged for multiple breaches of the Integrity Commission Act and the Parliament (Integrity of Members) Act, 1973, after she allegedly made a false statement in her statutory declarations over a six-year period. Speaking to the Jamaica Observer amidst calls from several quarters for Dalrymple-Philibert to resign from her post, Charles Sr, who served from 2016 to 2020 in the role, said, “The law specifically states what should happen if you fail to submit a complete declaration of what you own. It says clearly you have to go to court and explain to the judge and the judge would either fine you, or do as the law requires. The law is there, and I would do what the law says.” Asked if he was of the opinion that Dalrymple-Philibert should resign from her role as House speaker until the matter was completed Charles said: “Should she remain as House speaker, should she remain as Member of Parliament? The law specifically states what should happen and I would go with what the law says. Many members of parliament have failed to submit their complete declaration and they have gone to court and they have been fined and they go back to Parliament. So I would do exactly what the law says because the law anticipates that things like this would happen; you either forget or you deliberately do it and the law says what should be done,” the veteran politician stated. The ruling, contained in a report tabled in the House on Tuesday, follows an investigation by the commission in relation to a motor vehicle that Dalrymple-Philibert, the Member of Parliament for Trelawny Southern, had purchased through a concession afforded to legislators and which she failed to declare in her filings. The commission’s director of corruption prosecution ruled that Dalrymple-Philibert be charged with four counts of making a false statement in breach of the Parliament (Integrity of Members) Act, 1973 in her statutory declaration for the periods ending December 31, 2015, February 25, 2016, December 31, 2016, and December 31, 2017; and four counts of breaching the Integrity Commission Act, 2017 for making a false statement for the periods ending December 31, 2018, December 31, 2019, September 3, 2020 and December 31, 2020. Additionally, it said Dalrymple-Philibert had breached Section 36 of the Customs Act and recommended that the report be referred to the commissioner of customs to recover the duties paid on the vehicle and to apply “such penalties as the commissioner may deem to be appropriate”. It also recommended that the report be referred to the financial secretary in order to recover allowances paid to the House speaker in relation to the vehicle. Shortly after the report was tabled, Dalrymple-Philibert issued a statement explaining that she had forgotten to include the motor vehicle, which was primarily used by her sister, in her declarations. The House speaker said she was surprised at the conclusion reached by the commission, given that she has “always filed [her] statutory declarations and have done so in a timely and transparent manner”. Declaring that she has “nothing to hide”, Dalrymple-Philibert explained that in 2015 she had applied for and obtained a concession to purchase a 2015 motor vehicle. “The vehicle was purchased for $6 million and financed by a loan of $5.8 million from Sagicor Bank. The loan was taken out by Lincoln Eatmon, my sister’s spouse, and a deposit of $200,000 was paid by both my husband and Mr Eatmon,” she said. “The vehicle was used primarily by my sister, her spouse, and her son (my nephew), and occasionally by me when I am in Kingston. This is due to the fact that my husband and I owned more than one motor vehicles and as a rural MP I preferred driving an SUV because of the rough terrain that I am accustomed to traversing when in South Trelawny,” she said. Dalrymple-Philibert said that the Government had placed a three-year restriction on her ability to sell or transfer the vehicle, noting that it remained in her name and was never sold to anyone until May 2023. On Wednesday, the National Integrity Action, Jamaican Accountability Portal and the Advocates Network, in a joint statement, demanded that the House speaker resign immediately from her position as speaker. According to the entities, “it is undemocratic for the speaker to preside over the hearing relating to a report about her conduct”. “She is the subject of the report from the Integrity Commission and the director of corruption prosecution has ruled that she be charged with multiple offences committed between 2015 and 2021. We have noted that the speaker has also decided that the report be sent to the Ethics Committee of which she is chairman. This is wrong,” the groups maintained, while calling for a Code of Conduct for Parliamentarians. In the meantime, Charles Sr, responding to questions from the Observer on Wednesday over Dalrymple-Philibert’s status, said, “She is not being charged because she is speaker; she is charged because all members of parliament are required to make declarations and whether you are speaker, prime minister, ordinary member or minister, if you forget to put something in your declaration, then you are going to be charged because you have a declaration which says this is all that you have.” “Now she, like many of us, has forgotten certain things when we are making our declarations and the law has made arrangement for that. So she will probably go to court and the judge will take a decision on that. But whoever you are, if you are required to make a declaration of all that you have and you didn’t, then you have committed a breach of the law,” he stated. Asked about the precedent set

Marisa Dalrymple-Philibert’s tenure as House Speaker is hanging in the balance after the Integrity Commission ruled that she be slapped with eight charges in relation to her statutory declarations over seven years. Additionally, the commission’s director of investigation, Kevon Stephenson, in a report tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, recommended that the report be referred to the prime minister “for him to take such disciplinary and/or administrative actions which both recognises the seriousness of Mrs Dalrymple-Philibert’s conduct” and to deter recurrence. The ruling follows an investigation by the commission in relation to a motor vehicle that Dalrymple-Philibert, the Member of Parliament for Trelawny Southern, had purchased through a concession afforded to legislators and which she failed to declare in her filings. The commission’s director of corruption prosecution ruled that Dalrymple-Philibert be charged with four counts of making a false statement in breach of the Parliament (Integrity of Members) Act, 1973 in her statutory declaration for the periods ending December 31, 2015, February 25, 2016, December 31, 2016, and December 31, 2017; and four counts of breaching the Integrity Commission Act, 2017 for making a false statement for the periods ending December 31, 2018, December 31, 2019, September 3, 2020 and December 31, 2020. Additionally, Stephenson said he found that Dalrymple-Philibert had breached Section 36 of the Customs Act and recommended that his report be referred to the commissioner of customs to recover the duties paid on the vehicle and to apply “such penalties as the commissioner may deem to be appropriate”. Stephenson also recommended that the report be referred to the financial secretary in order to recover allowances paid to the House Speaker in relation to the vehicle. However, shortly after the report was tabled, Dalrymple-Philibert issued a statement explaining that she had forgotten to include the motor vehicle, which was primarily used by her sister, in her declarations. The House Speaker said she was surprised at the conclusion reached by the commission, given that she has “always filed [her] statutory declarations and have done so in a timely and transparent manner”. Declaring that she has “nothing to hide”, Dalrymple-Philibert explained that in 2015 she had applied for and obtained a concession to purchase a 2015 motor vehicle. “The vehicle was purchased for $6 million and financed by a loan of $5.8 million from Sagicor Bank. The loan was taken out by Lincoln Eatmon, my sister’s spouse, and a deposit of $200,000 was paid by both my husband and Mr Eatmon,” she said. “The vehicle was used primarily by my sister, her spouse, and her son (my nephew), and occasionally by me when I am in Kingston. This is due to the fact that my husband and I owned more than one motor vehicles and as a rural MP I preferred driving an SUV because of the rough terrain that I am accustomed to traversing when in South Trelawny,” she said. Dalrymple-Philibert said that the Government had placed a three-year restriction on her ability to sell or transfer the vehicle, noting that it remained in her name and was never sold to anyone until May 2023. “The vehicle was never sold to my sister, her spouse or any other family member,” she said. Further, she said, Sagicor Bank placed a lien on the title until the loan was repaid in 2022. “Therefore, my ownership of the vehicle was a public record at Tax Administration Jamaica, the bank, the insurance company, and the Motor Vehicle Examination Department. As stated earlier, the vehicle was primarily used by my sister and her family and at the time of filing my statutory declaration I honestly forgot about the vehicle and did not include it among the list of other vehicles I declared,” she said. Dalrymple-Philibert said that when the Integrity Commission called her to meet with them, she reviewed her file and called the clerk to the Houses of Parliament and requested a copy of the list of vehicles that she had acquired using the motor vehicle concession. “Having received the list which confirmed the 2015 vehicle, I revealed to the Integrity Commission that the vehicle was unintentionally omitted from my statutory declaration,” she said. In the report, the director of investigation stated that he was in possession of a letter of response dated March 29, 2022, from Dalrymple-Philibert in which she had indicated that she does not own a 2015 Mercedes Benz GLA 250. However, he said evidence obtained from Tax Administration Jamaica, Ministry of Finance, Jamaica Customs, and Sagicor Jamaica Limited, confirmed that the said motor vehicle was acquired and registered in Dalrymple-Philibert’s name” from 2015 until its divestment in May 2022″. The director of investigation said that due to the inconsistencies outlined with respect to the ownership of the motor vehicle, an interview was conducted with Dalrymple-Philibert on February 27, 2023. He said that when she was asked whether the information contained in the declaration provided an accurate and complete representation of the asset owned, Dalrymple-Philibert replied, “You know, I am going to look at a document here to verify. So, I am going to tell you now that I got a letter from the Integrity Commission about a vehicle which I owned, a Benz, and always said I never drove a Benz ,and so I wondered what they were talking about. When I got the letter to come to the Integrity Commission I said I would go because I have nothing to hide. Last week when I sat in the Supreme Court, I remembered that I got a concession for a vehicle which my sister drove until she sold it. I never drove it and I never had possession. I also requested from Parliament a list of my concessions for which they replied with a document showing that I received concessions for three vehicles. The documents detailed the Benz vehicle and so I must declare it.” In her release on Tuesday, Dalrymple-Philibert pointed to page 34, section 5.2.0 of the commission’s report which stated that “save for the omission identified”

Prime Minister Andrew Holness on Tuesday told the more than 500 delegates and dignitaries in attendance at the 37th International Drug Enforcement Conference in Montego Bay, St James, that “the war on drugs must be fought in parallel with the war on guns” to put an end to the loss of life from these illegal trades. “We no longer say the war against drugs, it’s a war to save lives not just from the abuse of drugs but from the use and abuse of guns. I dare say to this august body that the gun is a drug. Persons who are abusing drugs for a quick high, a quick fix are just the flip side of young men, dispossessed, trying to find power and respect looking down the barrel of a gun,” Holness told the gathering in the keynote address. “They are addicted to it. If you really want to make an impact on the war on drugs, rather save lives, we need to place similar efforts tackling the accessibility, availability, and use of illegal guns. There is no drug trade without an armoury somewhere, whether in the forests of Colombia; Mexico, in some city; or they are on the streets of Jamaica in some inner city as a gang of Jamaica,” the prime minister said further. The International Drug Enforcement Conference (IDEC) is a global law enforcement event focused on addressing the challenges associated with drug enforcement and combatting drug-related crimes. IDEC brings together law enforcement agencies, officials, and experts from various countries to collaborate, share information, and discuss strategies for combatting drug trafficking, drug abuse, and related criminal activities. Key objectives and topics of discussion at IDEC include, among other things, information-sharing by law enforcement agencies about data related to drug trafficking organisations, smuggling routes, and emerging drug trends. Tuesday, the prime minister said Jamaica is taking keen note of the growing trend involving synthetic drugs in North America. “While synthetic drugs are not the dominant modality in Jamaica, we are paying close attention; we know that trends in the United States oftentimes become global trends, so we are paying very close attention,” he said. Since the start of this year, there has been two seizures of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (more commonly known as Molly or Ecstasy ) originating from the United States and the Netherlands. There were four similar seizures in 2022. Holness on Tuesday said the production and trafficking of synthetic drugs like Molly and ecstasy have risen significantly in recent times in Jamaica. In the meantime, he said another worry is the increase in cocaine production in Colombia, given that Jamaica has also seen increased seizures of the substance here. “It is, therefore, likely that as cocaine production surges, Jamaica may experience a rise in efforts to traffic the illicit substance to and through our ports. The Narcotics Division of our police have been doing good work with early indications indicating that 2023 might be a record year for drug seizures, with the authorities confiscating approximately 1.5 tonnes in January, one of the largest ever drug busts in our country’s history,” the prime minister said, while pointing out that diplomatic partnerships play a crucial role in the fight against drug trafficking. Jamaica continues to be the largest Caribbean source country for marijuana and a transit point for cocaine trafficking from South America to North America and Europe. Transnational criminal organisations continue to use Jamaica as a drug trafficking transit location despite efforts to reduce and combat the illicit trafficking of narcotics. There are an estimated 150 unofficial entry points into Jamaica. The island’s geographic location and accessibility facilitates direct routes for narco-trafficking from South and Central America to the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Europe. In addition, the illicit trafficking networks have increased their use of courier services to conduct narcotic shipments to North America and the United Kingdom. Just last week Jamaica was again among countries listed by the United States as major drug transit or major illicit drug producing countries. The designation was made by US President Joe Biden in the required report for Fiscal Year 2024. Several other Caribbean states, including The Bahamas, Belize, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, are also among the 22 countries named in the Memorandum on Presidential Determination on Major Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for Fiscal Year 2024. Biden noted that a country’s presence on the foregoing list is not necessarily a reflection of its Government’s counter drug efforts or level of cooperation with the United States. He said the reason countries are placed on the list is the combination of geographic, commercial, and economic factors that allow drugs to be transited or produced even if a Government has engaged in robust and diligent narcotics control and law enforcement measures.

THE Government is to embark on a massive road rehabilitation programme across the island but Prime Minister Andrew Holness has not said how much money will be spent to do the repairs. “Your Administration has built more roads and repaired more miles of roads than any other Administration has done in the history of modern Jamaica,” Holness told a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Central Executive meeting on Sunday at Moon Palace Resort in St Ann, where he also pointed to the highway projects completed or now underway. He told the cheering Labourities that he has noticed protests over bad roads, “some of which are not organic” in recent time. “I pay close attention to them, because whether or not it is orchestrated or a naturally occurring protest we still listen to the voice of our people and, if a road is a concern for a community, the Government must pay attention to it,” added Holness. He said he is well aware that there are many communities across the island where, since they were created, the roads have not been addressed. “Some people will tell you that the road has not been repaired in 30 years. I have gone to places where they say from the community was established the road has never been fixed; and those persons are frustrated and they may very well feel slighted to see us opening these lovely highways while their road…which they drive on every day, is unrepaired. “So, as the Government, and as we execute our policy of building highways to prosperity, we must ensure that the highway is not just passing in close proximity, or moves people who are already on faster, but to get to that last mile [of road] to that rural community; that must be our commitment as a Government,” added Holness. In what he said was a direct message to residents who are frustrated about the roads in their communities, Holness declared that the Government is now in a fiscal position to treat the repair of roads as a priority. “We are in a position to make a budgetary allocation of a reasonable size, in a systematic way, to address the roads problem,” Holness said to loud applause. “It is because your Government, in the first term, focused heavily on fixing the economic engine of the country. “I am aware that there are many protests that are being orchestrated, and we know some people are being paid to do this. And when I see the roads that they are protesting about, I go back and I search the Internet and I search the newspapers…and during the time when the Opposition was in power those roads were being protested about…and those roads were in a deplorable state, and they were never repaired,” said Holness. “It is an important point to note that protests regarding road conditions in Jamaica is nothing new because that has been the state of our roads for more than 30 years,” added Holness. He argued that the only way any Government could fix the many bad roads in Jamaica is by solving the country’s economic challenges. “I am not telling you that we have solved all our economic problems, but it is certainly a good position to be in when one of the leading rating agencies can say, ‘You know what, after COVID, still in recovery, your performance is deserving of an upgrade’,” Holness said to more applause. “We are only in this position because we have managed the economy well, so [much so] that the Opposition can now say, ‘Spend on this, spend on that. Do this, why you don’t do this?’ Well, you couldn’t do it, and you had to borrow to do it, and still you never do it. And that is why people trust us more to get things done and…we must recognise that and we must get things done,” Holness told the cheering Labourities.

Chief Justice Bryan Sykes has said the issue of judges having to “work” while on vacation can be resolved by them handing down oral judgments for certain kinds of cases. The chief justice was responding to an observation made by president of the Court of Appeal Justice Patrick Brooks during the swearing-in ceremony of acting judges of appeal, puisne judges, and masters-in-chambers at King’s House on Monday. Addressing the gathering, Justice Brooks said, “The situation is that judges have had to go on vacation, creating the opportunity for these officers. Unfortunately, a number of the judges who go on vacation have to take work with them, writing judgments and so on, and so I look forward to the day when judges can go off and get the rest and relaxation that vacation is supposed to be.” But the chief justice said, “The question of solving the problem posed by the president of the Court of Appeal of judges going on leave without having to do judgments, the solution to it is within our grasp.” “What we have to do now is to organise ourselves to get that done, and how we can do that is by looking at, for example, the types of cases that we get in and you will find that most of the cases, over 90 per cent, that come through the courts are important cases for the individuals, but they are not unusual cases, they are not particularly difficult cases in terms of law and fact,” the chief justice pointed out. “So you have about roughly five to 10 per cent of cases that are really challenging cases, so what this really means is that with this kind of information you can actually have an analytical framework within which you examine those cases. Let me give a quick example, we know, for example, in the Gun Court, over 95 per cent of the cases, the issue is identification and so the law of identification is well-developed and then there was a judgment by Justice Frank Williams and he set out in the judgment how, for example, in the Court of Appeal you can manage evidence of that nature. So for the vast majority of those cases you can have oral judgments,” the chief justice reasoned. “There are similar situations in the parish courts, where over 40 per cent of the cases are assaults and woundings. Again, no earth-shattering law is going to emerge from there, so those cases really shouldn’t take a long time to be managed. If we begin to do things like that, we will get to the point that when the judges go on leave they will have no cases to decide while they are there,” Justice Sykes stated. He, however, described as precarious the management of fraud cases. “The critical thing is the fraud cases, those cases tend to consume a lot of resources and we really haven’t been doing well in managing these cases because the newspaper reports will tell us that we have at least one or two of these cases that are ongoing for four or five years. That needs to be examined,” Justice Sykes declared. A judgment or ruling can be in written or oral form. Oral judgments are often provided at the end of a court matter. In his charge to the acting judges he stated, “Let me make it clear that you are not here because of seniority; it is not about longevity and surviving all the others.” “We are looking for whether persons are performance qualified, that is to say, your work life has demonstrated over time a commitment to hard work, a commitment to excellence. And why do we look at your work life in that way? Because you have to guard against persons who may have a sudden affliction of activity that is designed to create the impression that, yes, I am committed and hard-working,” the chief justice said. In noting that the selected judges had passed that litmus test, the chief justice said, “You are actually here on merit.” – See related story on Page 27