The Tribune

By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

DNA CANDIDATE Wayne Munroe yesterday criticised live video link testimony in the Her Majesty’s Prison, calling it an “ineffective fool’s dream.”

The new technology, introduced last month, provides for remand hearings to take place by live television link, reducing the need for detainees on remand to be transported from the remand facility.

Minister of National Security Tommy Turnquest said on any given day more than 100 remanded inmates have their remand hearing at the prison heard by either a magistrate sitting in the court at Fox Hill or by the three video links connected to the two courts at Nassau Street, in Freeport or in the Supreme Court.

Mr Munroe said while the concept is a good one “it was a poorly executed job rushed by the government.”

“There is a serious problem in terms of having people out of camera shot. The problems is there is a camera focused right on the inmate and he is surrounded by prison officers. Now part of the remand process is you get to complain about how you are treated in prison by the prison officers. How could an inmate possibly make a complaint surrounded by his complaints. He can’t,” he said.

“This could have worked if it was done better, but it was rushed. It’s a fools dream. You still have to transport prisoners back and forth for trial so what does it save? A smart government would move prisoners early in the morning around 6am and return them after 6pm. They can stay in the holding cell at the court until their arraignment or trial. It alleviates the speeding through traffic and it ensures the prisoners will be there on time.”

Mr Munroe also criticized the government’s decision to build a magistrates complex in the “ghetto” and the governments failure to protect witnesses.

He said: “A lot of men stay in jail because they have no desire to come out. They are safe in there. It beats the alternative. You have to take things into perspective. When you build a magistrate’s court complex dealing with criminal matters in the ghetto where someone can drive by and look of course people will be reluctant. Anyone with vision can see this was a bad idea. You cannot protect a man in a court built on the street where anyone can just drive by the steps. It’s ridiculous.”

The new magistrates’ complex on Nassau Street was completed at a cost of $6.5 million and houses 12 magistrates’ courts.

Mr Munroe is the DNA’s candidate for Mount Moriah.