LOCAL NEWS

Spotlight on the courts Published on Thursday, February 25, 2010 Email To Friend    Print Version Former Premier and first lady due in court A number of court cases are making news. Former Premier Michael Misick and his former wife and First Lady of the TCI Lisa Raye McCoy Misick are due in court on Friday, February 25, to give testimony concerning their financial affairs. This appears to be a repeat, at least in part, of the evidence given before the Commission of Inquiry approximately one year ago. Ryder and Pratt cases compared by vocal pastor Lyndon Pratt has been sentenced to 12 months in prison for vehicular homicide and this has drawn strong comments from Pastor Jeffrey Handfield, who is charging racial prejudice. The basis of his charge is that in December 2007 now Assistant Commissioner of Police and the visible leader of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Service was also found guilty of vehicular homicide, receiving only a $300 fine. In the Pratt case, the defendant illegally passed vehicles stopped for a crosswalk and in so doing struck a turning motor scooter causing the scooter driver to lose his life. In the Ryder case David Ryder’s vehicle was said to have careened over the median strip and crashed into a school bus, causing the death of a 7-year- old girl and injuring the girl’s mother. According to the pastor, alcohol was involved in the Ryder accident. It is Pastor Handfield’s position that because of the Pratt victim being a white person Pratt has to serve 12 months in prison and Ryder only received a small fine. “He (Ryder) got a slap on the wrist,” said the pastor in a TV interview. The Ryder accident victim was a black girl. “The people of this country need to stop being complacent and stand up for their rights,” the pastor went on to say. Ryder himself is from Britain and is white. In a non-related court issue, Ryder has admitted in a broadcast interview that many of the criminal cases in the court system are being lost due to lack of diligence by the police in handling and keeping evidential records. Beaches employment case still to be decided Nine former employees of the Beaches resort who won their cases against the Resort in 2007 after being fired three years prior are returning to court to see if Beaches can appeal the case further. Beaches has yet to pay the judgment against them. Beaches is represented by Conrad Griffin QC of Misick and Stanbrook. The employees are represented by former speaker of the house Clayton Green and attorney Guy Chapman. A spokesperson for the employees said that Griffin has no case and he lost the case in the lower court because as the judge was reported to have ruled “no evidence” from Beaches. Out of 13 employees dismissed in 2004, these 9 were awarded damages for being fired without proper cause. The Court is due to decide on March 8 if Beaches has adequate grounds to warrant an appeal to a higher court. The employees were seen on the street a few weeks ago picketing Misick and Stanbrook for the delays in their obtaining their settlement. At that time they claimed the actions by the law firm on behalf of Beaches was only a stalling tactic.   Reads : 652 Back... Comments: No comments on this topic yet. Be the first one to submit a comment. Back... Send us your comments!   Send us your comments on this article for publication in our Readers' Forum or as a Letter to the Editor. All fields are required and in the interest of openness and transparency we will no longer accept anonymous submissions. We therefore request that all submissions include a name for publication, regardless of content. We will in special circumstances protect a writer's identity only after we have established good cause for anonymity, otherwise we will not be able to publish the submission. For your contribution to reach us, you must (a) provide a valid e-mail address and (b) click on the validation link that will be sent to the e-mail address you provide.  If the address is not valid or you don't click on the validation link, it will be a waste of your time typing your submission because we will never see it! Your Name: Your Email: (Validation required) Comments: Enter Validation Code *