NOTHING can dim the memories of the October day in 1981 when the car Lloyd Thomas was travelling in careened several feet down a ravine in Portland.

Compensation for the accident which left him paralysed and bed-ridden for 27 years could certainly make the remainder of his life a lot more comfortable, but Thomas, who was 15 at the time, was robbed of this compensation by the police who withheld the accident report for more than six years, by which time it was too late to file a claim with the insurance company.

The Police Public Complaints Authority has since found the police negligent in failing to hand over the report in a timely manner.

Explaining what happened on Saturday, October 10, 1981, Thomas said he was travelling in an Avis rental car being driven by an overseas visitor.

A few chains from his home, the driver – who was killed in the accident – swung from a deep rut in the narrow pothole-riddled road and while trying to avoid a collision with an approaching truck, the car tumbled in the river below.

Thomas woke up hours later in the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) and was later transferred to the Mona Rehab Centre, where he got the terrible news that he would never walk, sit up or do anything for himself again.

“When I heard I never reacted no way because I still didn’t quite understand what happened and so I was hoping one day I would walk again,” Thomas told the Observer from his home in Bath Spring, Fruitful Vale in Portland.

Two years later, the late Dr John Golding of Mona Rehab wrote to the Hope Bay Police requesting the accident report to file a claim with the insurance company, but the police informed them the log book was sent to Port Antonio Police Station.

“When me father go Port Antonio with a letter for the report, a police tek it and say him must check back,” Thomas recalled.

On subsequent visits, his father was told the log book was not found until eventually the police said it was sent to Kingston.

Thomas said a lawyer later discovered that the log book was with the Hope Bay police all along. However, by the time he received the report and wrote the insurance company, the case was already statute-barred.

Now paralysed from his neck down and covered with painful bed sores, Thomas is determined not to take this lying down and has written to just about anyone he believes can help him get justice.

“One day me beg a friend a phone book and me just go through it and write to everybody,” he said.

Justice Lloyd Ellis, executive chairman of the Police Public Complaints Authority, said investigations revealed the police “dragged their feet” until the case came to a halt, noting that in one instance a superintendent took 17 months to respond to a letter requesting information.

“There is no doubt the police is responsible for Thomas not accessing compensation for the horrendous injury he suffered and is suffering,” Ellis told the Observer.

He said his office wrote to the Attorney General’s office several years ago, requesting an ex-gratia award for Thomas, but the request was denied.

They again requested a review of Thomas’ case last February, but are yet to receive a response.

“As a lawyer and a judge who sat on the bench for over 20 years I really feel it for Mr Thomas to know that a citizen has been robbed of justice by the police,” he said.

Local human rights lobby group Jamaicans for Justice said they also wrote to the Attorney General’s office asking for reconsideration to be given to granting Thomas an ex-gratia award.

Public Defender Earl Witter whose office Thomas first wrote to in 1994, said he has reviewed the case since taking office three years ago.

“Having reviewed the file and having regard to the nature of the mandate it seems to me that this may well be a fit case for making a special report to Parliament and I have that decision under consideration,” Witter told the Observer.

On Friday, Solicitor General Douglas Lays told the Observer that although an ex-gratia award was initially denied for Thomas by his predecessor, he has revisited the case to see if anything can still be done.

“We are looking to see if there is any way to make the necessary recommendation to Government to say here is a plausible legal basis for compensation,” he said.

Lays said Thomas is, however, not legally entitled to any compensation from Government as he could have filed a claim with the insurance company without the police report. As such, he said, the police’s failure to hand over the report would not bring responsibility on the part of the State.

“We realise that an injustice has been done to him from the perspective that he was seriously injured in an accident and was not compensated but we have to do what we are doing in the ambit of the law,” he said.

Lays could not say when a decision will be taken on the matter as he said they have to give priority to a lot more pressing claims of “solid legal basis”.

The promise of a further review of his case is still a glimmer of hope for Thomas.

“People keep asking why I did not take up this matter long before now and I did but everything took so long because we never had phones in them days and when me write a letter me had to wait weeks for an answer,” he said.

His mother who would have followed through, restricts her travels to places she can walk to as she is too traumatised to travel in a motor vehicle since her son’s accident.

Outside of a visit to KPH in 1997, Thomas has never left his bed. He doesn’t know how much the community has changed. All he knows is what friends, family and the media tell him.

“As near as me verandah is from the room me can’t even sit on it.everything me mother and me sister have to do fi me,” he said.

Before the life-changing accident, Thomas harboured dreams of joining the military and providing for his parents.

But he never got that chance to help his father, who, as a result of the accident, suffered a nervous breakdown and lived on the streets where he was beaten to death by a mob.

“It really touch me when me hear how them kill him because me father did love me. All when me a 10-year-old him a carry me on him back because me was him only son,” he said, a shadow of sorrow coming over his face for the first time.

He now wants to start a business to provide for his 70-year-old mother who works tirelessly to provide for his financial and physical needs. He wants to buy a car for his nephew to operate as a taxi.

“Is she alone on the battlefield and she can’t manage but she push out just to make two ends meet,” he said.

He is tired of seeing her struggle to work everyday even when she is in pain.

“All when me mother a 50 odd she a work a banana estate a weed grass,” he said. Now she is a caregiver for an elderly gentleman, a job which is just as strenuous.

“She cry night and day because she in pain and high blood pressure killing her. Sometimes tears come to me eyes when I see what she going through but I don’t shed it for her to see,” he said.

Thomas is also unable to get a copy of his birth certificate from the Registrar General Department in Port Antonio as they claim the name on their records does not match what is on the slip given to his parents at his birth.

Although he paid the initial $750 to get the birth certificate, he is now required to pay a late entry fee, which he said should not be as the error is their fault.

“You think a little money me spend sending me sister there to go look bout it? And all a now,” he said.

He wants to get this sorted out to apply for a Tax Registration Number (TRN) to join the Combined Disabilities Association which would allow him certain benefits.

But despite taking such a battering from life, Thomas still has the brightest smile. Asked what keeps him going Thomas without hesitation said “I just love people”

“When me talk to some people it just cheer me up and it let me know that this is not the end of the world,” he said.