Canjet hijacker's father rues decision to imprison son

MONTEGO BAY, St James — A tearful Earl Fray yesterday told the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court he could not believe a mentally ill person could be sent to prison.

"How could they do that?" the soft-spoken Fray asked the court in reference to his son Stephen, who was jailed for over 80 years in October last year following his conviction on several charges including hijacking a plane full of passengers at the Sangster International Airport in April 2009.

The elder Fray hurried to tell the court that he was not speaking only about his son, but said there were other mentally ill people who were serving sentences in the island's penal institutions.

Despite being diagnosed with schizophrenia, Stephen Fray was found fit to stand trial.

Earl Fray's declaration came while he gave an unsworn testimony in his trial for negligent loss of a firearm, the .38 Smith and Wesson revolver that his son used to hold up the planeload of passengers bound for Canada.

The prosecution is seeking to prove that the older Fray's negligence led to his son's access to the weapon.

Earl Fray told the court that he lived at Albion with his three adult children, the youngest being Stephen who was 20 years old at the time of the incident.

He said on the day in question he left Stephen playing football with his friends on the Albion playfield and went to pick up his daughter at work. When he retuned he saw his son still on the football field.

Fray said that after taking a shower he checked the cabinet in which he kept his gun and when he did not see it, started searching for it.

He said he also noticed that Stephen was not in the house.

Fray said after making several unsuccessful attempts to find his son, he became aware of the news that someone was holding up a plane at the airport and remarked to his daughter, "which mad man that"?

He said he broke down in tears when he heard it was his son, then as they were getting ready to go to the airport, a marked police car came to the house and took them there.

He said he did not know his son was sick as he was always "quiet and kind and made a lot of friends easily".

Fray said he noticed his son's skin had got very dark and said, "it seems as if his mind had snapped" at which time they called psychologist Dr Wendel Abel, who after seeing Stephen prescribed medicine for him.

Fray told the court that there was a history of mental illness on Stephen's mother's side of the family as two of her brothers had suffered some form of mental illness.

He said he always kept on his person the key to the cabinet containing the gun, and the only time he took it off was when he was in the shower.

The prosecution, however, responded by saying the accused man had breached his duty to properly secure the weapon and as such had allowed an unauthorised person to get access to it.

The clerk told the court that under the Firearms Act, when the weapon was not in use, it should be stored in a safe place, such as in a vault bolted to wall inside the house.

The clerk said that for Earl Fray to have left the gun in a file cabinet he might as well had left it on a table and his breach showed disregard for safety and life as a gun was one of the most dangerous objects around.

Attorney-at-law Martyn Thomas, who is representing Fray, told the court that the prosecution had failed to prove that his client was criminally negligent in the circumstances.

Thomas said they had failed to show that his method of storage was unreasonable and clearly departed from the norm.

Fray will return to court on September 30 when Acting Senior Resident Magistrate Vivienne Harris will deliver her verdict.

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