The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

AGRICULTURE Minister V Alfred Gray yesterday admitted that contacting Mayaguana administrator Zephaniah Newbold on behalf of one of his constituents after he had been convicted and sentenced earlier this year might have been a “misjudgement”.

Mr Gray became embattled in March after the Free National Movement alleged that he abused his power by contacting Mr Newbold about having the teen released from custody.

At the time he admitted that he did contact the administrator, but strongly denied that he attempted to sway the course of justice. He has said he only informed the administrator, who was acting as a lay magistrate, that he could release the teen because he had appealed the matter.

While the issue has long faded from the public spotlight, Mr Gray again revisited the matter as a guest on Star 106.5FM’s radio show “Jeffrey”.

“If it’s anything, it might have been a misjudgment,” he said, “but certainly I don’t believe that any well thinking Bahamian would say that if the mother called (and said) her son’s arm she believed was broken asking if I could help to see a doctor and I did try to get him (to see a doctor). If I am wrong I accept responsibility for my wrong, but I never interfered with anything judicial, never.”

He continued: “I have been in politics almost 35 years and I haven’t had a field day. I have been criticised, but see I’ve been criticised for doing something. Nobody is going to criticise Alfred Gray for not doing anything.

“So those who judge me rightly or wrongly they don’t even know me. They don’t know me and they never called me to say well ‘this is the position that I am hearing?’ No, when people really want to get the truth the least they will (do is) call you and find out what the truth was rather than listen to the radio and watch the television.

“You know when that situation of which you first spoke (came about it was said) that I should be fired for interfering. I never interfered, never interfered. I made a humanitarian call because the mother of the young man called me after a case was completed and asked me if I could please get her son to see a doctor because she felt that his arm was broken.

“I made the call based on that to see whether I could get him to see a doctor. As the member of Parliament (for MICAL) I thought I had a duty to see whether I could get him some medical assistance that’s all.”

Mr Gray said had he not assisted the family on the day when the young man’s mother contacted him, he would have resigned because his job is to help the residents of his constituency.

After the controversy broke, Mr Gray asked Prime Minister Perry Christie to relieve him of his local government portfolio pending the result of a police investigation.

No charges were ever filed in connection with that investigation. Minister of Financial Services Hope Strachan now has local government in her portfolio.