More than a year after being freed from prison on the basis that he remained incarcerated for 50 years without a trial, 72-year-old George Williams is living in squalid conditions.
His niece, Pamela Green, is not pleased and is insisting that he should be compensated by the State because the legal system stole five decades of his life and has literally abandoned him.
“Since George Williams was released a year now, from the 24th of June, 2020, he hasn’t received any form of compensation. Sometimes it’s not enough, but we as a family try to do what we can do. We cannot do everything, but we try our best [and] we haven’t heard anything from the Government, nothing at all,” Green told the Jamaica Observer.
“He’s staying in Linstead, [St Catherine,] that was the old house from those days until now. The floor is falling, the ceiling is falling, it’s an outside toilet. We are living in a better age now, so we need something to be done so he can be more comfortable. It is rough, and then the living facility is in a deplorable condition, he needs proper housing,” she added.
Explaining that taking care of her uncle hasn’t been easy, the mother of four stated, “A me tek care of him — take him to the clinic. Me and my other uncle, we are basically his parents. It’s very ticklish at times, because you know he is in a different world now, and he is accustomed to a different lifestyle, so sometimes it’s very hard, because things that he would ask for, we cannot find it to give him at the same time.”
Williams’ case was brought up for review following national outcry over the death of 81-year-old Noel Chambers, who had been in custody for 40 years without trial.
Both men were among seven mentally ill men identified in an Independent Commission of Investigations report who had each spent at least 40 years in prison awaiting trial.
The police reported that he had been arrested and charged with the murder of a man in July 1970, but was subsequently declared unfit to plead as he was at the time diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Green strongly believes that had her uncle not been locked up for so long he would have contributed something positive to Jamaica.
“He could be the prime minister or governor general or something now; he lost all of his life in prison,” she told the Observer.
“I heard that the first time that he went to court he was unfit to plead, which in his situation, he shouldn’t be sent to prison. He should’ve been sent to see a psychiatrist. He shouldn’t be locked in an institution where they didn’t find him guilty for a crime, so you have him locked away for 50 years, for nothing,” she said, fuming.
Adding that Williams regularly gets his check-up at Spanish Town Health Centre, Green, who operates a bar, said he is “up and running, [and] he’s sensible more than even me, because things that I need to know most of the times a him mi ask and a him remind me”.
She lamented that his mother, who fought hard to get him released, didn’t get to see him before she died in 2006.
“His mother died, his father died. His mother was his right hand when he was in jail. His mother grew me, his mother is my grandmother, and growing up a little girl it was always George Williams she talked about. So, even if she was alive and she met you, she would start to tell you about George Williams,” Green told this reporter.
Noting that his mother would visit him at least three times a month, she further stated: “I can remember my grandmother went through every organisation seeking help for the release of her son and nothing never happen.”
