When justice failed to deliver Neither commission of enquiry nor court trial has brought closure to the Montego Bay Street People scandal. The enquiry levelled some blame, particularly on a police officer, but conceded that the original conspirators had not been identified. The trial targeted two Parish Council employees and a woman constable, stopped proceedings against the two employees and acquitted the constable of false imprisonment charges. This might be seen as a triumph of justice in a legal sense; but common sense would have indicated from the outset that these lowly scapegoats could not have conceived the dastardly plot. Some others atop some official hierarchy must have planned to dragoon some 30 street people from Sam Sharpe Square, Montego Bay, in the wee hours of a July night nearly two years ago. They were dumped in rural St. Elizabeth, spawning a scandal that rocked the nation and has now stumped judicial process. We have to wonder whether it should be so easy to beat the system, either by false testimony or simply refusing to come forward. Or is it that ferreting out the truth from high places is beyond the detective skills or techniques available to our law enforcers? In the aftermath of the court proceedings reports from Montego Bay suggest that concern persists that the true facts are still hidden. As far as we are aware, there is no official word about continuing investigation. A report from our Western Bureau states that although the official enquiry ruled that the victims should be paid $20,000 per month for life not a penny has yet been paid. It may be cynical, but tempting, to speculate that if Woman Constable Maxine Pindling had been convicted the authorities, headed by the DPP, would have felt vindicated by such a triumph of legal process. We would beg to differ and point instead to justice gone awry.
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