Inmates fret over court cases amid Dodds COVID-19 spike

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus at HMP Dodds, some prisoners have expressed concern for their safety and the speed at which their cases will be heard.

Attorney-at-law Lalu Hanuman told Barbados TODAY two of his clients who are on remand at the St Philip penal institution, reached out to him in a “distressed state” and following the revelations of the 161 positive tests at the prison with 113 of them being inmates.

He said to make matters worse, the two men were facing capital offences which had created additional anxiety as they were hoping for their cases to be heard this month.

“They called me yesterday and they are both on capital charges and their concerns are two-fold: one about the virus and two, how it will affect their cases because these guys want their matters expedited. Some of them have been on remand for quite a while and in fact, one of them has been on remand for several years now and his matter was scheduled to be heard on the 20th [of January] so he is concerned that might not happen now,” Hanuman told Barbados TODAY.

“In terms of the COVID-19 aspect, they are incarcerated and obviously they are forced to stay there and anybody in their circumstances would be concerned.”

The lawyer said he had also been told by the inmates that prison staff was moving between the two sections, the quarantined section and the rest of the prison.

“They are concerned that the infected prisoners may infect the officers who may then bring it into where they are,” he explained.

Hanuman said he was not informed about any lack of sanitation supplies for inmates.

However, he said he was curious about how court would proceed in the new environment.

“I’ve got court matters next week and I still don’t know today what is going to happen because I haven’t seen anything from the Chief Justice indicating what is happening so I have no idea whether the matters are still on or not. I’m totally in the dark,” he said.

Queen’s Counsel Andrew Pilgrim told Barbados TODAY that families had been getting in touch with him trying to ascertain the health of their imprisoned loved
ones.

The attorney-at-law said the situation would most likely delay all matters at the court.

He said the court would have to look at using Zoom to hear court matters with the full use of personal protective equipment.

On Monday, Attorney General Dale Marshall said while there would be no interruption to civil court proceedings, criminal court would be disrupted.

He said the Chief Justice planned to meet with “the criminal bench” to plan the way forward.

“Obviously in relation to matters that are criminal in nature, it will be impossible for those individuals to come down to either the Magistrates’ Courts or the High Courts to have their matters heard.

“For quite a while there has been a practice in allowing certain types of applications to be done by Zoom so as to eliminate travel, but in this type of situation even to accommodate that type of process at Her Majesty’s Prison Dodds will represent a challenge and unwarranted interaction between prisoners and prison officers,” Marshall said at national press conference yesterday.

(randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)