Juliet Holness denies 'bully' claims in real estate development lawsuit

Juliet Holness, a director and majority shareholder of a real estate development company suing a St Andrew landowner, has rejected claims that she is a bully who destroyed private property in pursuit of their multimillion dollar investment. 

Holness, a member of parliament and wife of Prime Minister Andrew Holness, was also questioned on her integrity as a trial linked to the construction of an apartment complex by JAJ Development and Holdings Ltd started in the Supreme Court on Tuesday. 

JAJ is suing Charlene Ashley, the owner of Lot 21A in Leas Flat, Red Hills, for the title of the land – a piece of which it bought in 2012 for $22 million. Payment includes giving Ashley one of the apartments. JAJ's portion is Lot 21B or lot two. 

Ashley has countersued, alleging trespassing by JAJ. 

The five-day trial was set to start on Monday before Justice David Batts but the judge, at Ashley's request, allowed the parties to pursue last-minute talks to arrive at a settlement. 
Those discussions failed and on Tuesday morning Holness took the witness stand at the King Street-based court. 

One of her attorneys, Sidia Smith from the firm Bennett Cooper Smith, led her through aspects Ashley's witness statement. 

Ashley has accused Holness of using “bully tactics” to try to take away parts of Lot 21A. She said she was “shocked” on returning home one day to find landscaping work and other items at the back of her premises that borders the development allegedly destroyed by JAJ. 

“Absolutely not,” Holness said when her attorney asked her to respond to that claim. 

The lawyer continued: “At any time did you employ bully tactics against Ashley?” to which the MP replied: “At no time at all.”  

Holness also said “absolutely not” in response to whether she was aware of any JAJ worker trying to intimidate Ashley. 

INCIDENT VIDEO-RECORDED

In an June 2018 incident, Ashley said she saw Holness instructing workers to demolish “an entire concrete terrace”. 

“'I appealed to Holness to desist from destroying my property (chain link fence, stepping stones, pathways and all the sentimental items - bricks from my first home, plants, a large fish tank, etc) which I had there on the concrete terrace. Holness hissed her teeth and ignored my pleas…',” Smith read from Ashley's statement. 

Ashley further argued that she started to video-record the incident with her cell phone but “Holness' foreman grabbed the phone from me, deleting the video, refusing to return the phone”. 

Accusing JAJ of “trespassing”, Ashley said her husband was forced to call the police “in order tto stop the assault from escalating”. 

“I indicated to Holness that I could not believe that she had an entire site full of men bullying me and destroying my property,” Ashley further claimed, before alleging that the foreman threatened her.  

Holness said she recalled the incident but rejected the claims that she destroyed the terrace because “there was no terrace on the reserved opening”. 

She explained that having built out the apartment complex, the only way to get to it was through accessing a reserve road she said ran alongside Ashley's property. She said a dog house made of PVC pipes, bricks and stones and thinly lined with cement was on the road. 

“Several efforts (over 3-4 years) were made to have, as Mr Ashley agreed, the doghouse removed. But it wasn't done. And on that day, we finally decided to remove the doghouse because it was not a concrete structure as indicated in the agreement for sale,” Holness said, referring to Charlene's husband Earl and a stipulation in the sale agreement that concrete structures on the reserve road should not be demolished. 

Holness denied the phone grabbing incident involving the foreman she named as Anthony 'Martin' Harris. 

“I did not see him take her phone. In fact, he was on his iPad videotaping the doghouse,” she said, adding that “Harris at no time threatened Ashley. She actually had her finger pointing in his face”. 

Meanwhile, Holness said “absolutely not” in response to an assertion from Ashley that the two entered talks with a potential financier named “Mr Hickey” to fund the development after Holness reportedly said she did not have enough money to complete the complex. 

Ashley claimed that in 2018, with work having slowed down on the development, she introduced Hickey to Holness after the businesswoman reportedly claimed that money had been diverted to fund Andrew Holness' election campaign. 

And Holness has admitted that the 2013 version of the drawings for the apartment complex included Ashley's lot. She also said the additional size from Lot 21A was used in the calculation of the density, meaning it allowed the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation to approve more habitable rooms for the development. 

AMENDED DRAWING APPROVED

Asked whether it was “intentional”, Holness said: “No, it was an error [and] immediately on realising that that error was made we proceeded to make the correction. That was done by writing the authorities and resubmitting the drawings with the removal of the area that was overestimated. Therefore, reducing the actual density.”

She said the amended drawing was approved in June 2021. 

The site plan continues to show the Ashleys' residence although “nothing that relates to the development” relied on the Ashleys' property. Holness explained that the parish authorities insist that the main site plan has to show both lots until there are separate titles. 

The issue with the title is the central argument for JAJ, which, through Holness, has insisted that the submission of a subdivided title by the Ashleys does not meet the specifications of the sale agreement. 

Holness has insisted that the width of the reserved road on the title provided last December is three metres, five metres short of what was allegedly agreed. 

She denied a suggestion that the access road was "superimposed" on the drawing of Ashleys property for "academic" reasons and was never intended for actual use.

Holness is being cross-examined by Ashley's lead attorney, Aon Stewart, who started less than 30 minutes before the close of the day's proceedings. 

Stewart early out asked Holness, who is also the deputy speaker of the Jamaican House of Representatives, whether she considers herself an honest person. 

“Absolutely,” she said. Holness also answered “yes, sir” when asked whether she was a person with integrity. 

Questioned on the access road, Holness said the easement was located "immediately beside" Ashleys' property. 

Stewart is expected to continue Wednesday morning. 

Work on the development has stalled since around February 2020.

jovan.johnson@gleanerjm.com