Family shuns man after rehabilitation

Paul A. Reid, Staff Reporter

WESTERN BUREAU:

THE MONTEGO Bay Resident Magistrate's Court is to make one last try today to get a family member to take thirty-odd year old Collin Murray off its hands.

Insisting that his son was a grown man and need to go out on his own, Fredley Murray has told the Court that he was not taking any responsibility for Collin, who has been in custody for three years, unfit to plea in a case of breaking and larceny because of mental illness.

The younger man was supposed to have been released from the Montego Bay lock-up last week, but Resident Magistrate Paulette Williams wanted to make sure he was not released to walk the streets. The court is making a final attempt today, when an aunt in Westmoreland is to attend the sitting, to verify if Collin can live with her in a house he said his grandmother had died leaving behind.

Collin told the court that the house at "Rat-trap district, three miles from Bethel Town, belonged to him and he had left his aunt as caretaker for it.

Resident Magistrate Paulette Williams said, however, she wanted to make sure the house was still there, as Collin had been in custody for three years and could not be sure and she did not "want to release him to walk the streets."

Collin was arrested three years ago for storehouse breaking and larceny, but was found unfit to plea as he was suffering from mental illnesses including schizophrenia. He has since recovered and is fit to plea but is to be released.

He first appeared in the court on Wednesday, May 16. when the order was made for his father to turn up at court on Monday, May 21. The court was told on Monday that the elder Mr. Murray was in tears when the probation officer spoke to him, and said that he would not take responsibility for his son and also refused to even come to the court as he was said to be fearful.

The elder Mr. Murray eventually appeared in court on Friday. He told the court that his son's behaviour was "rotten" and he wanted nothing to do with him when he was released. Asked what should be done with the now recovered man, the father said, "I don't know your honour."

The father told the court that his son had won a scholarship to Cornwall College but fell in with the wrong crowd, started missing school, smoking ganja and was eventually expelled.

He said he sent him to Canada, hoping he would get back on the right track, but he ended up on hard drugs and had to come back home where he has been terrorising the house. The elder Murray told the court his son would steal everything he could get his hands on including eating utensils.

"He has come of age, he is a big man now," the elder Murray told the court.

Collin Murray was alleged to have broken into a storeroom owned by his father in Mount Salem and stolen a quantity of items. Murray had told the court then, The Gleaner learned, that his mother had died leaving the items to him and he had gone to claim them.

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