DELROY MCINTOSH’S FAMILY WILL SEEK COMPENSATION

FAMILY members of 51-year-old Delroy McIntosh — a mentally challenged man who was freed when he appeared in the Savanna-la-Mar RM Court last Thursday after spending nearly 25 years in prison awaiting trial for possession of a small quantity of ganja — have vowed to take legal action against the State.

According to Letford McIntosh, uncle of the man affectionately called Ray, a prominent western Jamaica attorney has already been approached to champion the cause.

“I have already started to seek the services of a private lawyer to get compensation for the number of years that Ray spent in prison. It wasn’t justified, none at all, because they couldn’t even find the file for what they charge the man for,” the uncle told the Jamaica Observer West earlier this week.

“We really want compensation fe Ray. We couldn’t mek Government keep him in prison for 25 years and don’t compensate us. Yeah, we want compensation, man,” said the uncle.

He said his nephew was a budding farmer, prior to June 1990, when he was arrested for possessing a small quantity of ganja.

“He used to farm very good, help out his father and things like that in him younger days,” the worried uncle said.

He further noted that even as Ray’s acute trembling has significantly subsided since he was released from prison, he’s still “not stable enough” to return to tilling the soil.

The uncle said that he’s finding it difficult covering the cost for his nephew’s medication since his release. McIntosh’s elderly are unable to work.

In 1990, McIntosh was placed among inmates at the St Catherine Adult Correctional Centre in Spanish Town before being transferred to the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, formerly General Penitentiary, because he was deemed unfit to plea.

At the time, there was an undertaking that he would be returned to court in Westmoreland when he was fit to answer to the charge.

But he languished in penal institutions for half of his life until Norman Manley Law School tutor Nancy Anderson and a group of second-year law students, who were undertaking a project at the Tower Street penal institution, stumbled upon the matter.

He had his day last week in the Savanna-la-Mar RM Court where he pleaded not guilty to possession of ganja, and was set free.

Following his release, the mentally challenged man has been accommodated at the small home of his elderly parents, who are not financially sound enough to provide for his medical and other expenses.

His mother, who is a diabetic, arthritis and high blood pressure patient, is confined to bed, while his father who has similar afflictions as his mother, moves around with the assistance of a walking stick.

“Mi wife sick and need somebody fe help look bout her too because mi naw work and mi deh pon little pension. And him (Ray) mother sick. She can only move around a little. She is troubled with arthritis, diabetes and high blood pressure; mi have then same sickness too, but mi stronger than her,” said Ray’s father, Artman McIntosh.

The dejected father recounted that his son lived with his grandmother, who died since he was incarcerated, adding that the house they occupied has since been demolished.

Despite the challenges they are both elated to see the release of their son.

And it’s not only family members who are celebrating his release.

“I was young boy when he was taken away, but he was a nice guy. The whole community rate him. Mi glad feh see him. He was a good, good young man who mi used to follow when I was a boy. Good boy, a mi friend, man,” said Christopher Campbell, a member of the Friendship community.

And earlier this week, the Observer West news team spotted a smiling Ray, who sported a low cut hairstyle, calmly riding a bicycle in the community with steady hands, a far cry from the violently trembling man who stepped gingerly from the Savanna-la-Mar RM Court, days earlier.