Gov't ordered to pay over $120M to man locked up for 50 years without trial

The Supreme Court has ordered the Government to pay over $120 million in damages to George Williams, the mentally-ill man who spent 50 years, or his entire working life, in custody without a trial.

The sum includes $78.6 million for compensatory damages and $42 million for vindicatory damages, according to the judgment handed down on Thursday in a wrongful imprisonment lawsuit filed by Williams’ attorney John Clarke.

The Government had offered to pay Williams $6 million, but this was rejected by his family.

Supreme Court Judge Sonya Wint-Blair declared in her ruling that Williams’ right to due process and a fair hearing by an independent and impartial court within a reasonable time were breached by the failure of state organs to conduct periodic reviews of his incarceration to determine whether he had recovered his mental health to be fit to enter a plea and stand trial.

Williams, a Rastafarian, was taken into custody by the police on December 29, 1970 and charged with murder of Ian Laurie committed on July 21 that same year, according to documents reviewed by The Gleaner.

However, he was kept in custody at the court’s pleasure because he was declared unfit to enter a plea.

Wint-Blair declared that the manner of his detention breached his right to liberty to which he is entitled by virtue of his being a citizen of a free and democratic society.

Williams’ plight came to light following the release of a 2020 report by the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM).

The report revealed that he was one of seven mentally-ill men who had each spent at least 40 years in prison awaiting a trial.

One of them, Noel Chambers, also a Rastafarian, died on January 27, 2020 at the age of 81 after spending 40 years in a high-security prison without a trial.

Chambers’ body “showed evidence of chronic emaciation” and was “covered with bedsores, vermin bites, and live bedbugs”, the INDECOM report said.

- Livern Barrett

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