‘10 years is a long time to suffer pain’ – Mario Deane’s mother
Published:Thursday | June 27, 2024 | 12:05 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Less than 10 years after Mario Deane died from injuries he received after being beaten while in custody at the Barnett Street Police Station’s lock-up in Montego Bay, St James, his mother Mercia Fraser still struggles with renewed grief and trauma whenever the case regarding his death gets postponed.
“Right now it is hurting from every angle, physical, emotional, and spiritual. Ten years is a long time to suffer such pain and the constant reminders, and not even counselling can help when you keep hurting up the wound,” Fraser told The Gleaner.
She was speaking a few hours after Monday’s latest appearance of three police officers – Corporal Elaine Stewart and District Constables Juliana Clevon and Marlon Grant – before the St James Circuit Court, where they are expected to undergo trial on charges of manslaughter, misconduct in a public office, and perverting the course of justice.
The charges are in relation to Deane’s death three days after he was beaten while in police custody on August 3, 2014.
The three police officers had their case rescheduled to November 18 when they appeared in the Circuit Court on Monday, due to a lack of jurors to try their case. The issue of insufficient jurors had previously led to the matter being put off when they appeared in court on June 10.
Ironically, in September 2021 Clevon’s attorney Morrel Beckford, now deceased, told the then-presiding High Court Justice Stephanie Jackson-Haisley that the three cops were insistent on having their case tried by jury, despite prior discussions on having the case tried by the judge alone.
For Fraser, who led annual public protests calling for justice for her son’s death up until 2020, the issue of insufficient jurors to start the officers’ trial has been a source of constant frustration, though she has resigned herself to the current status quo of a drawn-out resolution of the matter.
“From the period of COVID-19, the issue was about having jurors in the courtroom because of social distancing, and the accused did not want to be tried by the judge, and now they can’t find jurors. I was summoned to attend court on June 10, yet only five jurors were summoned, and now for June 24 (Monday), only three more jurors turned up. This is playing dolly-house,” said Fraser.
No closure
“Ten years, and no closure? It is sad, really depressing. Poor people don’t have any talk in this country,” Fraser lamented. “You know when someone suffers such trauma and they are always referred to grief counselling, and after every session you feel a bit better, and then you go back to court and it brings you right back to where you are moving away from? That has been my experience, but I just have to live with it and strive to overcome.”
According to the allegations, Stewart, Clevon, and Grant were on duty at the Barnett Street police lock-up in Montego Bay, at the time when Deane was brutally beaten on August 3, 2014 while in custody at the facility for possession of a ganja spliff.
Deane, who was 31 years old, later died at the Cornwall Regional Hospital.
It is also alleged that Stewart, the most senior officer of the trio, gave instructions for the cell where the beating took place to be cleaned before the arrival of investigators from the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM).
The trio’s trial has been stonewalled on multiple occasions since they first came before the St James Circuit Court on September 18, 2018.
The case was mentioned on October 2 and 10, 2018 for a case management hearing to agree on what evidence would be deliberated at trial. It was mentioned on January 11 and 31, 2019, where full disclosure of documents was not done, and again on March 28, 2019, when a trial date was set for March 10, 2020.
However, the trial was rescheduled to September 21, 2020 due to a lack of jurors and the absence of the investigating officer. On that date, it was put off to January 18, 2021 because the officers’ defence team wanted their clients to undergo a jury trial, despite jury trials being restricted because of the pandemic.
On January 18, 2021, the trial’s anticipated start was scheduled for September 16 that year following further discussions with the lawyers. Then on the next date, it was rescheduled yet again to April 20, 2022.
In addition to the police officers’ ongoing court appearances, inmates Marvin Orr and Adrian Morgan pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2020, in relation to Deane’s death. However, the two inmates, who both suffer from mental defects, were ordered by the court on July 30 that year to be released on the grounds that they had been in custody since 2014.
A third inmate, Damion Cargill, had previously been deemed unfit to plead in 2017 and was released into his family’s care.