A devout Rastafarian is facing medical and emotional challenges because he was forced to cut his locks following what he described as a terrible night in a police jail.

Devon Malcolm, general secretary of the Half Moon Bay Fishermen’s Co-operative, pointed to swelling at sections of his head and face, resulting from his having to sleep on a cold floor.

Malcolm, who is facing one count of extortion, following his arrest at Hellshire Beach on Emancipation Day, August 2, could not get anyone to bail him when it was offered close to 11 o’clock that night. He was denied bail with his own surety.

He, along with four other executives and members of the Half Moon Bay Fishermen’s Co-operative, was taken into custody after a group of soldiers and policemen swooped down on them while they collected money from patrons entering the Hellshire Beach.

Police said that the men had no right to collect money, but members of the co-operative are challenging that claim, saying that they were the rightful owners of 10 acres of the property and thus had the right to charge if they saw fit.

“I suffered from swelling of the head and my face and I contracted a cold as a result of sleeping on the floor,” Malcolm, who holds the name of a West Indian-born former England fast bowler, told the Sunday Observer.

“I got a cold in the eye and in my back because I had to sleep on the floor. There was not even a piece of cardboard or cushion in the cell,” he complained.

“Police never treated us bad, but it’s just that the conditions were terrible… the cold concrete, the number of prisoners in the cell and the subhuman conditions, everybody doing everything right there. It was wicked,” Malcolm said.

A day after he was released from lock-up and booked to appear in the Spanish Town Resident Magistrate’s Court on August 17, Malcolm had to face a reality that never remotely entered his mind in his 24 years of wearing locks.

“I had to cut off my locks because I picked up something in the jail and started itching,” he said. “This has caused me a whole heap of depression and has left my morale very low. Is the first me go a jail on co-operative business and I need to get my name cleared. My family has suffered from this whole incident, too.”

Now low-shaven, Malcolm still keeps his locks for posterity. His first priority is to prove his innocence in a case in which he maintains that the police blundered badly by arresting individuals who were not guilty of wrongdoing.

However, the loss of his locks continues to haunt him and he said that he does not know how to console himself.

“I really don’t feel good about the whole thing,” he said.

Malcolm’s lawyer, Delano Franklyn, described what happened to his client as unfortunate.

“The men said that they were locked in a cell for more than nine hours before three of them were released on bail. Two others had to spend the night in the lock-up, which resulted in medical problems for one,” Franklyn said.

“It’s unfortunate, because these are ordinary fisher folk, from ordinary families, who have formed themselves into community co-ops since the 1970s to develop them. They are one of the few co-ops that have survived,” Franklyn said.