It would appear that a recommendation that was ignored over a decade and a half ago could be the formula used to free Trelawny native Morris ‘Rassimong’ Small, who has been languishing between jails and prison for the past 16 years without standing trial.
On Tuesday, Hugh Faulkner, the executive director of the Legal Aid Council, said that when Small makes his next appearance in court on July 30, efforts will be made to have him housed at an infirmary until the conclusion of his case rather than to have him sent back into the penal system.
Small’s protracted incarceration without trial came to the fore following the death of 81-years-old Noel Chambers, who died on January 27 in prison, where he had been for the past 40 years awaiting trial for murder.
In the case of Small, had the Trelawny Municipal Corporation acted on a recommendation by the former councillor of the Sherwood Content division, Fernandez Smith, who, basically, made the same recommendation that Faulkner is now making, at the time of Small’s arrest, chances are that he would not have had to undergo the inhumane experience of the past 16 years.
While he no longer is a sitting councillor, Smith, who again highlighted Small’s case during the public uproar over Chambers’ death, feels relieved that although 16 years late, it finally seems that Small will be taken out of the penal system and placed in an infirmary, where he can receive treatment for his mental illness.
