BASSETERRE, St Kitts — There has always been a concern for witnesses after they have given information in court, and so Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn is adamant that more must be done to protect them.

Llewellyn stressed that more resources ought to be channelled into the Government’s witness protection programme.

“The whole question of witness care as it relates to persons who are incarcerated serving a sentence and, for example, in a gang case, decide to take advantage of the Plea Negotiations Act — Section 20 says if you offer or if you assist the prosecution of the investigation in a particular case, you can get a reduction in your sentence,” Llewellyn said while presenting at a Symposium on Prison Reform hosted by Improved Access to Justice in the Caribbean (IMPACT) from July 5 to 6 at the St Kitts Marriott Resort & The Royal Beach Casino in this Eastern Caribbean island.

Llewellyn added that due to prisoners taking advantage of the Act, the system has been able to prosecute successfully.

“That is an element I would wish to focus on — the whole question of witness care for persons who are going to be cooperating witnesses. And we in Jamaica have been doing some gang prosecutions and we have recognised that there is no provision — in respect of the infrastructure — to cater for prisoners who are serving a sentence and who have consented to use the Plea Negotiations Act and get that advantage of getting several years shaved off of their sentence.”

In 2019, the Ministry of Justice pledged to improve the state of witness care and protection in Jamaica.

Former executive director of the Legal Aid Council, Hugh Faulkner, who represented the minister of justice, was speaking during the opening session of the country’s first comprehensive Witness Care Conference which was held at the Faculty of Law at The University of the West Indies, on July 19, 2019.

Faulkner had said that key stakeholders, which included justice sector officials, the legal fraternity, civil society and the judiciary, that the Jamaica Government stands ready to work along with partners and implementing agencies to strengthen systems and processes to benefit witnesses.

Chief Justice Bryan Sykes was also at the 2019 conference, which was a multi-agency collaborative initiative involving the justice ministry, Global Affairs Canada, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Justice Undertakings for Social Transformation (JUST) Programme.

Justice Sykes, too, called for equitable justice services for witnesses.

However, the first problem, Llewellyn said, is housing informants in the same prisons as the people they are working against.

“You can’t keep them in the same facility in respect of the accused that they are going to be giving evidence against. You can’t do that,” she lamented, highlighting the possibility of “witness intimidation”.

Llewellyn also exampled one man who recently pleaded guilty to 11 counts of murder, and is a part of gang in Jamaica, without detailing names and location.

“Through him, we have been able to bring down another three or four members of the gang. But when we do these plea deals we cannot make it public because it will sensitise the gangs or the gangsters that this plea deal is what is going to bring them down and they will target their families. That is something witnesses worry about… how to make sure their families are protected while they are incarcerated.

“The witness protection programme people at the Ministry of National Security who made a deal with members of the family of the incarcerated individual, we have to communicate with them and to make sure that they understand that the administration of justice will be enhanced by that extra witness care being given. It is difficult because they are incarcerated. So we have to depend on the correctional authorities to be responsive and usually they are, but sometimes the bureaucracy gets them,” Llewellyn said.