The Tribune

By CARA BETHEL

cbrennen@tribunemedia.net

ONE Family has lodged an official protest over the Boxing Day Junkanoo results, claiming a penalty they received was wrongly applied.

If successful in their bid, One Family, whose theme was “Ya born dere, ya born dere,” could move up from third to first place and be declared the overall winners of the parade.

However, the committee which decides on official complaints is not due to meet until January 7.

As the unofficial results stand now, the Valley Boys are the winners with 87.93 points, the Shell Superstar Saxons are second with 84.45 and One Family are third with 84.29.

Douglas Hanna, chairman of the New Providence Parade Management Team, last night confirmed that he had received an official protest from the One Family group, but would not disclose the nature of the complaint.

However, a senior member of One Family told The Big T that the group is protesting a five-point deduction over one of their costumes.

“There were two people under a costume when there should have only been one, which is a penalty, but the penalty should have been given only to the costume scores and not the overall score. 

“So if we didn’t have the five points deducted, we feel we would have enough points for us to be in first place. So we are now just waiting to see what will happen with the protest,” the group member said.

Mr Hanna said that once he receives a complaint from a group, the official procedure is to turn it over to the independent review committee which reviews the scoring and then makes a determination on whether the current results will stand.

However, as complaints from other groups may be lodged from now until January 7, he could not guarantee that One Family’s would be the first one to be reviewed.