Dear Editor,

The following is a open letter to the Chief Justice of Jamaica Bryan Sykes.

Clover Graham was my wife and I write on behalf of her immediate and extended family.

Sir, you are no doubt aware that Clover lost our only son in 2007 in very similar grim and grizzly circumstances. At the time of her own murder, she was still grappling and coming to terms with this loss.

Given the history, we are shocked and outraged that it has taken 11 years to begin court proceedings. These are 11 years in which my family has had to live a nightmare that comes from the lack of closure. Eleven years after her murder, you are proceeding to retraumatise this family by forcing us to go back to that nightmare period in our lives. The delay is, at a minimum, insensitive, and from where I sit it has been cruel and unusual punishment visited on us by your office.

But, as you know, it is much worse than that. Last Friday, January 12, 2023, the accused murderer absconded, and Jamaica’s law enforcement officers are now involved in a new manhunt for him. The continuing failure to get the matter into the courts has prolonged the mental anguish that we as a family have had to endure. We have suffered, and are suffering, from the trauma of a double loss of loved ones whose lives were taken in an identical manner, compounded by the over-a-decade-long delay in getting any justice for Clover.

The fact that Clover’s accused murderer was able to simply not turn up, further denies the closure that we need. It prolongs the mental anguish and emotional turmoil.

As the chief justice you are the primary responsible official and you are — or should be — held accountable. It cannot be that you preside over a justice system that takes 11 years to bring a case of murder to trial. Anywhere in the world that would be viewed as catastrophic failure. It cannot be, as appears to be the case, that you preside over a legal system that gives accused murderers the choice of whether they should face justice or not. That is not just ordinary failure, it is abject failure that prolongs our pain.

A number of questions arise:

• Should not the accused murderer have been remanded in custody?

• How many accused murderers, rapists, and perpetrators of other violent crime are currently on bail in Jamaica, and why?

• How many are on bail when their accomplices have already been found guilty and have served sentences for their part in the same crime?

• In 2023, how hard can it be to fit ankle bracelets to accused murderers, rapists, etc so that their whereabouts can be monitored by the authorities, thereby ensuring their appearance in court when they are supposed to?

Clover was an attorney-at-law, as such she was a member of the profession that you lead and represent. If you cannot deliver justice for one of your own, how can you possibly ensure justice for anyone else in Jamaica? From my family’s viewpoint, the justice system has already failed us miserably, but the wider failure is that it has failed Jamaica and tarnished its image throughout the world. Justice delayed is justice denied and our whole family has suffered as a result of the failures of the justice system. Jamaicans deserve better than what you are currently offering.

At this stage I am asking that you show some compassion by leaving this family alone and proceed with this matter without evidence from any one of us. In other words, please don’t retraumatise my daughters and their partners by compelling them to give direct evidence in the courts, 11 years after the fact.

Dr Rex McKenzie

Widower