Avia Collinder, Sunday Gleaner Writer

Constable Maxwell Clarke who was shot in 1989 and left paralysed. - Contributed

Special Constable, Maxwell Clarke, turned into a quadriplegic after he was attacked by gunmen eighteen years ago, is making a public appeal to the Jamaican Government to honour his pension claims which, to date, they have completely ignored.

"I am totally destroyed and unable to sustain myself financially," the resident of Spanish Town , St. Catherine, and father of three girls tells The Sunday Gleaner.

On February 26, 1989, Special Constable Clarke, then aged 22, was on special assignment duty armed with a service revolver and 12 rounds in the Spanish Town area, when he was trailed by a group of gunmen who attacked, shot and injured him.

Clarke was taken to the Spanish Town Hospital and later transferred to the Kingston Public Hospital where he was admitted. He had received a gunshot wound to the left side of his neck, which severed his spinal cord and caused paralysis from his waist down.

Resulting from the injury he received, a medical board was convened to consider his fitness for continued service. Declared unfit to serve, Clarke was discharged from the Island Special Constabulary Force with effect on October 5, 1992.

The disabled constable subsequently received a gratuity of $5,358.76 on October 28, 1992, from the government's pension branch. Clarke says he has not received the pension to which he is entitled to because he was injured in the line of duty.

"With the increase in cost of living, I am finding it very difficult to cope," he told The Sunday Gleaner. The disabled policeman receives a disability allowance from the Special Constabulary Force Association of $7,000.00 per month and his relatives assist sometimes with the basic necessities.

Rehabilitation

However, he states: "They cannot afford to assist me anymore. I have to do without physiotherapy which is vital to my rehabilitation because I cannot afford it, not to mention medication."

According to Clarke, he has also written to the commissioner of police about employment and a job has been approved at Harman Barracks, but he is unable to do this for want of transportation.

He says he has also sent emails to the offices of the Public Defender and Senator Floyd Morris about his situation, but has received no replies.

Neville George, chairman of the Island Special Constabulary Officers' Association, has been championing the policeman's cause. In a letter on the matter to the attorney-general, George argued: "In the circumstances, I recommended that the matter be reviewed to allow him to receive pension instead, because he was injured in the line of duty in accordance with the provision of the Constable (Special) Act Section (35) where the governor-general may determine, because the gratuity he received was woefully inadequate."

According to George: "Prior to the atrocities against Special Constable Maxwell Clarke, he was loyal, dedicated, honest and always willing to go the extra mile for his country."

His country, Clarke feels, should do the same for him. Clarke, whose children are aged 18, 19 and 20, has had to watch the children's mother bear singly the load of caring for and schooling them.

Unmarried, he notes: "I have to pay someone to take care of domestic duties. I am sometimes assisted by my colleagues at Harman Barracks and the Association of Special Constables Credit Union, but I am not coping."