Grange, Daley, Samuels And Others As Character Witnesses For Ford Sends The Wrong Message

A recent event of much impor­tance is play­ing out in the upper ech­e­lons of the Jamaican soci­ety which has tremen­dous sig­nif­i­cance with­in the larg­er con­ver­sa­tion on crime and it is large­ly being ignored.

At the cen­ter of that storm is Red Hills Road Medical Doctor Jephthah Ford who has been con­vict­ed in the courts on charges that he attempt­ed to per­vert the course of justice.
The case demon­strates in clear unequiv­o­cal ways, polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions, pow­er and how the over­ar­ch­ing sense of enti­tle­ment over-rides the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and the impact it is hav­ing on crime overall.

It demon­strates how politi­cians, pow­er­ful monied cit­i­zens, and senior police offi­cers con­tin­ue to be the back­bone of the crime cul­ture through affil­i­a­tions and asso­ci­a­tions while using tear-jerk­ing sto­ries to jus­ti­fy col­lu­sion and com­plic­i­ty with uneth­i­cal and crim­i­nal behavior.
Additionally, it shows how the much-maligned low­er ranks of the police are used at dif­fer­ent points as scapegoats.
We see how good police work in the final analy­sis which net­ted a big fish can be the sub­ject of sub­ver­sion by senior police offi­cials and politicians.

The case involv­ing Jephthah Ford began in 2014 when he was arrest­ed and charged after he attempt­ed to bribe a police offi­cer to release two Surinamese men who had been caught with near­ly $60 mil­lion. He also request­ed the return of the con­fis­cat­ed funds. During the 10-day tri­al that start­ed in May, pros­e­cu­tor Joel Brown led evi­dence that Ford was caught on cam­era offer­ing a per­cent­age of the mon­ey seized to a police offi­cer in exchange for the release of the men and the funds.
The two for­eign­ers — Roshen Daniels and Murvin Reingold — were held after police inter­cept­ed a motor vehi­cle on Half-Way-Tree Road in St Andrew on April 7 and found US$533,886 and J$1.3 mil­lion. The men were lat­er tak­en to their apart­ment where the police seized an addi­tion­al US$3,000, J$700 and 55 Surinamese dol­lars. The two were sub­se­quent­ly charged with pos­ses­sion of crim­i­nal prop­er­ty and con­spir­a­cy to pos­sess crim­i­nal prop­er­ty but were freed of the charges when they appeared in court. Dr. Ford had con­tact­ed the offi­cer while the men were in cus­tody and request­ed a meet­ing to dis­cuss the case. During the meet­ing, Ford was cap­tured on cam­era ask­ing for the case against the men to be dis­missed. Ford told the court, dur­ing the tri­al, that he was try­ing to assist the Surinamese men by pre­vent­ing them from remain­ing in cus­tody because he feared they were going to be killed by the police. According to the JamaicaObserver​.com.

The charges and ulti­mate con­vic­tion of Ford is not the real issue here, even though it is extreme­ly rare and almost unheard of, that the promi­nent and well con­nect­ed upper-crust are charged, convicted,much less held account­able for their crimes.
The real issue in my esti­ma­tion are the peo­ple who have come out of the wood­work try­ing to influ­ence the already use­less lib­er­al courts not to impose a cus­to­di­al sen­tence on the now con­vict­ed felon, Jephthah Ford.

Getting lost in all of this is the integri­ty and com­mend­able actions of the police offi­cers involved in the inves­ti­ga­tions who could have done what many of them would have done giv­en the same set of cir­cum­stances but who chose to do the right thing.
Lastly, it demon­strates that despite the protes­ta­tions of those who would step for­ward to give char­ac­ter tes­ti­mo­ni­als on behalf of Ford he is no dif­fer­ent than any crit­ter which gets its tail caught in a crack.
Even as a retired Assistant Commissioner who is a known People’s National Party sup­port­er steps for­ward to give char­ac­ter evi­dence for Ford, the very accused Ford is on record smear­ing the police as a defense strategy.

POLITICIAN

Stepping to the fore to give char­ac­ter evi­dence on behalf of Jephthah Ford was #1 Minister of Culture, Gender Affairs, Entertainment and Sports Olivia Babsy” Grange.

Grange told the court that despite their polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tions, Grange being a mem­ber of the Jamaica Labour Party and Ford a for­mer People’s National Party politi­cian, he is her fam­i­ly doctor.
The min­is­ter explained that Ford was the one who diag­nosed her late moth­er with stage-four can­cer, after the doc­tors in Canada, where she was resid­ing, were unable to detect what was wrong with her. Grange said she felt respon­si­ble to give evi­dence in sup­port of Ford spite of her busy schedule.
Grange told the court she believed it would be a trau­mat­ic event were Jephthah Ford was to be giv­en a cus­to­di­al sen­tence for his crimes.
She described Ford as a car­ing per­son who has saved many lives and pro­vid­ed free health care to count­less indi­vid­u­als, admit­ted yes­ter­day that she was a “lit­tle emo­tion­al”.

In what could eas­i­ly pass as a won­der­ful exam­ple of bi-par­ti­san­ship, an exam­ple of how far we have come since the days when Labourites and Kumreds[sic] were killing each oth­er over pol­i­tics en-masse, this effort to influ­ence the courts is noth­ing more than an attempt to keep a mem­ber of the upper class from fac­ing real justice.
There is absolute­ly noth­ing wrong with giv­ing char­ac­ter evi­dence on behalf of some­one, in fact, it is a use­ful tool which gives the tri­al judge a work­ing idea of who the defen­dant real­ly is and is usu­al­ly instru­men­tal in mit­i­gat­ing what­ev­er sen­tence the court would nor­mal­ly apply.
However, in a small coun­try like Jamaica where it seems that only the lit­tle fish gets fried while the big fish gets thrown back, con­trary to con­ven­tion­al wis­dom, this sends a bad mes­sage, the optics are not good.

It demon­strates at the very least, a craven yet trans­par­ent attempt to once again usurp the process, to per­vert the course of jus­tice only this time using plat­i­tudes and sap­py tales instead of pounds of cash.
It is a vile attempt to con­tin­ue to keep the upper crust of the soci­ety from the hum­bling con­fines of penal confinement.
I have nev­er seen or heard of a sin­gle case where Ms. Grange have ever attempt­ed to offer char­ac­ter evi­dence for any­one from below Cross-Roads.

SENIOR POLICE

Forner Assistant Commissioner of Police Garnett Daley. #2

Former Assistant Commissioner of Police Daley anoth­er of the char­ac­ter wit­ness­es for Ford told the court the following.
That he came in con­tact with Ford while he was assigned to the Constant Spring Police Station, tes­ti­fied that he had known Ford for 40 years. He said he met Ford when he was a detec­tive inspec­tor and tes­ti­fied that dur­ing his tenure at the sta­tion Ford would assist the police with sick pris­on­ers and police offi­cers who were injured. The retired cop explained that for more than 20 years Ford would have treat­ed police offi­cers at his office if the envi­ron­ment at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) was not safe.

“I recalled an offi­cer who was shot and he was rushed to KPH — and this was the time when the vicin­i­ty of the KPH was very volatile — and I called Dr Ford and he rushed to KPH, where he exam­ined him and trans­ferred him to St Andrew Hospital, and that patient became his patient at that time,” Daley said. Samuels, dur­ing the exam­i­na­tion-in-chief, asked Daley if there were any oth­er med­ical doc­tors in the vicin­i­ty who would offer such services.

“I can’t recall,” Daley replied. “How would you view that?” Samuels asked Daley.“[As] a good ges­ture,” Daley replied. Daley told the court that Ford still main­tains a good rap­port with indi­vid­u­als in the com­mu­ni­ty. On cross-exam­i­na­tion, the pros­e­cu­tor ques­tioned Daley’s rela­tion­ship with the med­ical doc­tor. “For 20 years most of your inter­ac­tion would be work­ing?” the pros­e­cu­tor asked. “Yes, and I would see him from time to time,” Daley replied. jamaicaob​serv​er​.com

Garnet Daley was an Assistant Superintendent while I was there as a con­sta­ble attached to the CIB office.
Daley’s tes­ti­mo­ny though true in most regards does not tell the whole sto­ry. As a med­ical doc­tor, Ford is a sig­na­to­ry to what is known as the Hippocratic oath.
The Hippocratic oath is a pact to treat the ill to the best of one’s abil­i­ty, to pre­serve a patien­t’s pri­va­cy, to teach the secrets of med­i­cine to the next gen­er­a­tion, and so on. His ded­i­ca­tion to ser­vice as a doc­tor as artic­u­lat­ed by Daley and Grange is not unique to Ford, it is his job.
What they do not tell the court and won’t tell the court is that Ford’s prac­tice was well renowned in police cir­cles for treat­ing crim­i­nal gun­men who shunned the pub­lic med­ical facil­i­ties out of fear of being caught.
Ford’s atten­tion to the Hippocratic oath had pre­cious lit­tle to do with com­mu­ni­ty or ser­vice it was about his own nar­row self-interest.

Renowned lawyer Bert Samuels who is rep­re­sent­ing Ford has also offered him­self up to the court to give char­ac­ter evi­dence on behalf of his client.
Bert Samuels, Garnet Daley, and Ford com­plete the nice tight lit­tle tri­an­gle of PNP oper­a­tives cur­ry­ing favor to avoid the fair and jus­ti­fied dis­pen­sa­tion of Justice.
Grange is allow­ing her­self to be used in this process and it sends a bad mes­sage to the aver­age joe that the law applies only to the guy on the cor­ner and not the connected.

At a time when every tongue is wag­ging about police cor­rup­tion real or per­ceived, these offi­cers did the right thing and the courts have a duty to impose a sen­tence com­men­su­rate with the crime regard­less of the protes­ta­tions before it.
Those offi­cers could eas­i­ly have tak­en a bribe and walked away, they chose to do the right thing.
It is up to this court to do the right thing and send a mes­sage that regard­less of who you are and what you may have done with your life all are equal in the sight of the law.
Failing which we are all wast­ing our time talk­ing about cor­rup­tion and the esca­la­tion of crime.
We will await the outcome.