MONTEGO BAY St James — Attorney-at-law George Thomas will on Monday receive the nation’s fifth highest honour — the Order of Distinction (OD) for outstanding service to the legal profession and the community at large.

A past student of the Cornwall College for Boys where his athletic prowess earned him a scholarship to study in Michigan, he read for a bachelor’s degree in history and the political sciences and a Masters degree in Social Studies.

He then progressed to England were he qualified as a barrister at the Inner Temple Inn of Court in 1978. He was subsequently called to the Jamaican bar in 1983. The Jamaican leg of his legal career as deputy clerk of the Resident Magistrates’ in Trelawny is where his career was largely influenced by Justice Kay Beckford the then clerk of that court. Since then he has featured in several high-profile cases, one of the most recent being last year’s trial of Stephen Fray, who was convicted last October for holding up a CanJet Flight 918 months earlier in April.

Thomas, a divorcee, is the father of three children, Martyn, an attorney at law; Melissa, a registered nurse and Maurice who is in flight school.