THE police appealed for help last night from PNP St Catherine councillor Ned (Enos) Lawrence for help in finding his son, called Devil, who has seemingly been linked to Spanish Town’s notorious Clansman gang and implicated in several recent murders in the town.

In the meantime, the PNP’s South Central St Catherine MP, Sharon Hay-Webster, dared the head of the Spanish Town police, Superintendent Kenneth Wade to name the PNP politicians whom he claimed supported the activities of slain Clansman leader, Donovan “Bulbie” Bennett.

“Let him call names,” Hay-Webster told the Observer last night. “If he knows who it is that has this link from the party, he should be able to provide name(s)”.

She rejected any link with Bennett, who was killed by the police in the parish of Clarendon on Sunday, triggering two days of riots and unrest by his gang members and supporters in Spanish Town.

The police said yesterday that a “senior member” of the gang, who was identified only as Freddy, was inciting the disturbances, in some cases forcing people “at gun point” to demonstrate against the police.

In addition to searching for Freddy, the police announced publicly that they wanted Lawrence’s help in finding his son.

“.The police are requesting the assistance of Councillor Ned Lawrence to take in his son for questioning,” the Constabulary Communications Network (CCN) said. “His son, who is known as Devil, has been implicated in a number of murders in the Spanish Town area over the past four months.”

Clansman, whose members are known to be aligned to the ruling PNP, and One Order, whose members support the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party, are the two main gangs operating in Spanish Town and have been engaged in deadly fights for turf and control of the city’s extortion rackets.

Scores of people have been killed in the fights, which often take on a political complexion, involving communities that support either of the two major parties.

On Monday, at the height of the unrest in Spanish Town, Wade said that Bennett, who had eluded the police for a decade, and his gang had received some support from the PNP.

“We can’t deny that,” Wade said on radio. “.We have persons who are fully elected members supporting the criminal activities of this man.”

But Hay-Webster would have felt herself partially the target of such comments because of what he called her role in attempting to bring peace to Spanish Town.

Earlier this month Hay-Webster and her neighbouring MP in Central St Catherine, Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange of the JLP, caused public consternation when they met with One Order and Clansman members in Spanish Town, hoping to broker peace between the gangs.

As she left the meeting Grange’s car came under fire, and a man riding a motorcycle next to the car, was shot dead. Another man was injured. Both were claimed to have links with the One Order gang. It was not clear whether this was directly an attack on Grange or, as some suggest, other persons who may have been in the car with her.

Like Grange, Hay-Webster has taken heat because of public perception of a failure to forthrightly denounce PNP-aligned gangs and gang members, as her predecessor, Heather Robinson did. Robinson resigned from Parliament in 1996 over the issue and because of political differences with Lawrence, the local government councillor, whose son the police are seeking.

A year before she resigned from Parliament, Robinson unmasked Bennett as an emerging criminal ‘don’ who wanted her help to advance. She rejected his appeals, telling the legislature that she would not give birth to any dons. “In that regard I am truly barren,” Robinson said.

The following year, when she left the House, she told her party that she could not abide by some of the relationships struck up party workers in her constituency, and of deep differences with Lawrence.

Hay-Webster inherited the seat in the 1997 general election, but yesterday rejected notions that she supported gangs, noting that she was regularly in contact with police chief Lucius Thomas seeking to find ways to end crime.

Her only relationship with Clansman, Hay-Webster said, was its base in her constituency.

Said Hay-Webster: “They don’t support me. I don’t call them for support. The only thing that we may have in common is the fact that they are headquartered in my constituency..

“It is grossly unfair that the superintendent should be making these sorts of accusation . I have children and they don’t like the type of things that I have to face. Would I want to compromise my interest? Why would I want to do that?”

PNP deputy general secretary Colin Campbell also rejected any link by his party with the Clansman gang.

“The PNP has no link with Bennett, nor the Clansman gang,” Campbell said. “We never supported him (Bennett) nor any other terrorist. The notion that the party is in league with these people is most definitely wrong.”