Pedro Caddle, Maximum Sentencing Please!

Peter Caddle

BU’s Note: Local media has reported that Pedro Caddle has turned himself over to authorities in the company of his Attorney at law on Friday 30, 2013. Given the nature of this matter BU withholds the name of the person who submitted this writing two days ago which was not picked up by BU.

One again, the police are seeking public assistance in locating Pedro Caddle, who is wanted in connection with a number of “serious criminal matters”.  Pedro has been recently released from prison, where he has been held since 2011, following a May 2011 request for public assistance in locating the man, then too being sought in connection with a number of “serious criminal matters”.

Of course, Pedro’s venture into “serious criminal matters” began well before 2011.  The readership may recall that Pedro was a victim of a shooting incident while at the QEH in 2002.  Public transcripts on the ensuing trial state, “Pedro Caddle, a person who by his own admission is constantly in trouble and always being shot, went to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on that day in question for dressing for one of his numerous gunshot wounds, and was shot again by an unknown assailant.”

Judge Randall Worrell Joins the Call to Decriminalize Marijuana

Submitted by the Mahogany Coconut Think Tank and Watchdog Group

The Honourable Mr. Justice Randall Worrell

We are in full support of High Court Judge Randall Worrell’s call to decriminalize marijuana for personal purposes. We are also in full support of his position that our court system is clogged up with old cases involving marijuana charges. We do not condone drug abuse in any form but we believe that if cigarettes can be legally sold, there should be sales of marijuana as well. At least we know that cigarettes destroy millions of lives annually and place tremendous pressure on health services.

We hope that a more progressive approach is used in assisting those afflicted with the addiction of marijuana. We strongly believe that prison should be used for the punishment and rehabilitation of hardened criminals and not those who for one reason or another find themselves addicts. We know that many kids today are addicted to their parents’ prescription drugs and there are those amongst us who are addicted to medication. Certainly a modern judicial system cannot continue to waste time, resources and prison space on what are unfortunate human maladies. Our kids today are under constant pressure and sometimes they fall victims to habits that cannot be cured by excessive floggings or imprisonment.

We are equally concerned about the use of alcohol by our very young citizens and find it very hypocritical, that we are content with turning a blind eye to the heavy intake of alcohol in our communities. Alcohol is also a drug and its addiction is widespread. We are also concerned about the role the heavy use of alcohol plays in instances of domestic abuse , the financial ruin of many families and non –productivity in the work place. If we intend to seriously tackle addiction, we must be prepared to do so at all level.

The Violet Beckles Affair, Separating Fact From Fiction Part IV

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Related Links:

• Rights, Justice And The Law In The Case Of Violet Beckles

• The Violet Beckles Affair, Separating Fact From Fiction

• The Violet Beckles Affair, Separating Fact From Fiction Part II

• The Violet Beckles Affair, Separating Fact From Fiction Part III

The links to the images in the Slide Show are provided below. To the lawyers,  we are not in a court of law.

Dottin, Pack Your Bags Please!

Submitted by St. George’s Dragon

Commissioner of Police Darwin Dottin

Commissioner of Police Darwin Dottin continues to dig himself and the Royal Barbados Police deeper into a hole on the matter of Derrick Crawford and the wrongful accusation of double rape.

Not content with saying he did not think Crawford was innocent, he is now reported in the 28th December Barbados Today as saying effectively, that Crawford got off because all Black people look alike to Whites. Is this man for real?

Wait until the British press gets hold of that statement – Barbados reputation will be in further tatters.

Murder or Manslaughter? Depends on Who is the Killer

Caswell Franklyn, Head of Unity Workers Union

In the case R. v. Sussex Justices, ex parte McCarthy I1924), Lord Chief Justice Hewart, in quashing the conviction, said: “Justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done.”

On November 8, 2008, 16-year old Anna Druzhinina died a horrible death at the hands of Omar McCollin and Teereth Persaud, who received 16 and 21 years respectively for their crime.

I have heard this case discussed by several persons, all laymen, and all of them, like me; believe that this child’s killers have gotten away with murder. As I understand it one will walk out of prison in 12 years and the other in 15 years and 9 months. That is a small price to pay for such a gruesome killing.

Notes From a Native Son: How Anarchy Has Replaced the Rule of Law in Barbados

Hal Austin

Introduction:

In this season of goodwill, it is important to reflect on a recent example of petulance, obstinacy and outright arrogance by the Commissioner of Police over the recent acquittal of an innocent man accused of double rape. The facts of the case are simple: two women, white and British, in separate incidents alleged they were raped by a local man.Within a short period of making the reports, a man was arrested,interrogated and then charged with the rape offences. Almost as soon as they were invited to identify the man, both women said the accused was not the attacker and gave a number of identifying characteristics as evidence that the police had arrested the wrong man.

There was no forensic evidence, no DNA, only an alleged confession, obtained in custody while under interrogation, which was repudiated almost as soon as the accused appeared in court. In any civilised legal system, based on the old Roman principle that it was better that ten guilty persons go free than a single innocent one be wrongly convicted, that should have been the end of the case. Not in Barbados. Having been remanded in custody for eleven months, and the potential miscarriage of justice attracting the attention of the international press, the accused was released but not before the police, courts and the Guyanese director of public prosecutions prevaricated and delayed. It took the criminal justice authorities eleven months and a showpiece trial, worthy of the old Soviet Union, to work out that no properly constructed criminal court would have convicted the accused beyond a reasonable doubt, given the lack of evidence. First grade criminology students know that confessions are not themselves reasons for a conviction.

Fire Somebody Please!

Image credit: BBC News – CLICK ON IMAGE TO WATCH VIDEO

“Two British women who were raped within days of each other in Barbados say they are convinced the man who has been charged is not their attacker. Researcher Dr Rachel Turner, from Hertfordshire, and Diane Davies, from Anglesey, in north Wales, were attacked on a beach in Holetown St James in October 2010.

Barbadian Derick Crawford, 47, has been charged but both women, who have waived their right to anonymity, told BBC Breakfast’s Bill Turnbull and Louise Minchin why they believe he is innocent. They say he is much younger than the man who raped them. Both women hope the case will be dropped at the next hearing on Thursday.”

Read full BBC Report

Is DPP Charles Leacock on the Golf Course While An Innocent Man Awaits JUSTICE?

Charles leacock, DPP

BU continues to follow the story – Rapists, Commissioner Darwin Dottin and the Integrity of the Evidence – of a poor Black man accused of raping two English visitors to Barbados. That the story has taken an interesting twist must be termed an understatement. Last week in an unusual occurrence for Court systems around the world, the two women raped appeared in open Court to argue that the man Commissioner Darwin Dottin says there is incontrovertible evidence they believe to be innocent.

To update this matter from the Barbados Court: the case has been adjourned until December 13, 2012 to await direction from the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Charles Leacock. BU sincerely expects that given the extraordinary harm this story is having and will continue to have on the reputation of Barbados and its people, that decision makers are giving this matter their urgent attention. BU would be very disappointed to learn that DPP Charles Leacock has continued his weekend routine of being on the golf course at Sandy Lane or Westmorland when his urgent feedback is required to resolve this matter. Why the hell did the Magistrate feel compel to adjourn this matter until the 13 December 2012?

To those who believe it is not an urgent matter, a scan of the widely circulated UK press The Telegraph shows its lead story in the World Section as – How two British women raped in Barbados declared their ‘attacker’ innocent. The story is currently listed in the newspaper’s Top Ten most read stories.

Notes From a Native Son: Tell the Yanks to Back off our Policymaking

Hal Austin

Introduction:
American diplomats in Barbados have recently been pushing their snouts in the trough of Barbadian domestic public policy, against all conventions and accepted good manners, using their money as a Trojan horse. But this unwarranted intervention in our local domestic policymaking is not surprising; as America loses its influence in the world, it will intervene, more and more, in regional matters – the re-treading of Monroe-ism.

Part of the post-independence Barbadian political narrative is the myth that we are now masters in our own home; but, in reality, it is as much a self-deceiving nonsense as that we control our economy. However, although the language might have tempered itself in to what the Harvard sociologist Lawrence D. Bobo calls laissez faire racism, the reality is that the social outcomes of the new arrangement (that post-independence settlement which I have mentioned previously) still means that those left in the old communities, unable to escape to the Heights and Terraces, are the ones who pay the heavy social price. In a society shaped by American social biases, which is predicated on a winner/loser paradigm, there is an assumption that there must always be people at the bottom. But this is not a natural order of things; we know this from other societies, such as Scandinavia, and from the animal kingdom, that opportunities can be spread right across society.

Calls For Inquiry Guyana Police Killings

Submitted by Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID)

Guyana Police Commissioner Leroy Brummell

NEW YORK: The New York based Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (CGID) has strongly condemned Wednesday’s Police shooting to death of three unarmed protestors in Guyana’s mining town of Linden. The three were part of a large demonstration protesting a 50% increase in electricity rates.

Protestors reportedly blocked the Wismar Bridge which facilitates vehicular traffic to and from the country’s vast and natural resources rich hinterland region. This prompted riot police sent in from Georgetown to fire teargas and rubber bullets. Protestors responded by throwing stones and teargas canisters back at police who responded with live rounds, killing three and wounding dozens.

Calling for a Commission of Inquiry into the shooting, the institute labeled Guyana’s People’s Progressive Party (PPP) government “a communist, Indian-dominated ethnocracy, which views the inalienable and constitutional rights of African-Guyanese to protest as subversive.” It said historically the PPP has acted to crush such dissent.”

Barbados Country Assessment of Living Conditions Report: Poverty On The Rise and The Need to Protect Our Women

RIP Nicole Harrison-Watson

The death of 37 year old Nicole Harrison-Watson remains top of the mind for many Barbadians a couple days after she was found murdered at her Ferniehurst, Black Rock, St Michael home. While it does no good to speculate about what motivated her assailant (a suspect is being questioned by Police), it affords the living the opportunity to critically and dispassionately analyse the poor conditions which many Barbadians live under in Barbados and in particular our young women.

BU subscribes to the view that a woman with her unique nurturing quality was created to complement a man. When the two – man and woman – function in harmony, they are able to optimize on their mental, physical, and emotional state. The result is that the society we cohabit becomes a good place in which we can live quality lifes. The challenge of the government, NGOs and civil society at large is how do we manage to achieve the societal equilibrium required with all the competing ideologies at play.

Without fuelling the puerile debate about building a society instead of an economy, how can we pontificate about the success of the Barbados society, if according to the most recent  Barbados Country Assessment of Living Conditions Report (CALC)  “persons living below the poverty line in Barbados has double, since the last study on living conditions and poverty was undertaken over a decade ago”? Pertinent in the report is that 19.3% of Barbadian individuals in 15% of  households earn income below the poverty line – 9.1% of individuals 7% of households were living below the indigence line at the time the survey was carried out. An easy conclusion to make, anecdotally though it is, these numbers with the prevailing economic hardships must be trending upward.

West Indies Cricket Dominance Threatened By The Inaction Of ICC

Chris Gayle (l) Sunil Narine (r)

Cricket loving fans in the Caribbean have been reacting to the news that a solution to the Gayle WIBC impasse is imminent. Reports in the regional media indicate that a high level mediation led by Prime Minister Ralph Gonzales [Chairman of the Caricom sub-committee on cricket] and President of the WIBC met with Gayle in St. Vincent last week. The fact that Gayle will need time to mull over a proposed deal continues to illustrate to those of us not intoxicated by the emotion this issue has generated that the underlying problem for the WICB and the West Indies team remains.

The real problem for the WICB is to recognize that the foundation of the problem is money and greed. Defenders of Gayle’s position suggest that loyalty cannot be taken to the supermarket. It does not matter that Sir Viv Richards and other prominent cricketers of yesteryear spurn attractive money offers to play in South Africa as one example of principle trumping money considerations. To think they were paid far less than present day players by the WIBC! There was a time when individuals were prepared to stand on a principle, any money consideration although important was not the ‘over-weight’ consideration factored to arrive at a final decision.

The leadership (used loosely) in West Indies cricket needs to reconcile what are the overriding perquisites to building a cohesive team now and the future. One does not have to be Peter Drucker to appreciate that a team requires members to committed to team objectives, as important, is the need for team members to manifest behaviours which lend to the team achieving optimal cohesion. All other considerations must be weighed secondary if the West Indies team is to achieve success.

The Force Compromised By Manpower Shortage

Submitted by RUSERIOUS

Commissioner Dottin asking Barbadians to apply for openings

Hello friends it is I once again. I have to tell you that I used to work as a volunteer counsellor with the Police Juvenile Scheme. It is a good initiative, and I made many friends. I believe that everyone has a chance in life and deserves a second chance. There’s not very many evil or bad to the core persons in Barbados, just some wayward youngsters causing a lot of aggravation. I digress, that’s a little about me, since I blog semi regularly, today’s topic is about the recent Front page news story relative to a Policeman being allegedly kicked in the family jewels by a teenager.

Most of us keep up with the news and courts and we see a lot of teenagers getting charged for robbery and all kinds of stuff. So I asked a buddy of mine in the Force, what’s with teenagers kicking your *ss now? The individual told me that Police still get a lot of respect from known criminals, persons with criminal history, and most adults, but he said you see those teenagers and young adults? They are the ones to be afraid of, they never come quietly, they almost always fight.

Well fine, Police gotta face the people who resist from time to time, so use non lethal force right? Well yeah if they had them. The crux of this matter is, the Force is short in man power, we know this for a fact, and it’s getting shorter each year, vacancies have been at 100 or more for as long as I can remember, so they aren’t getting a surplus of recruits vs people leaving.