A look back at Cayman’s courts reveals a year of several notable judgements and changes within the judiciary.
William Ian Rivers was sentenced to 35 years for the murder of Mark Travis ‘Hubba’ Seymour. Seymour was gunned down outside the Super C restaurant on Watercourse Road in West Bay in January 2017. A jury convicted Rivers in September 2018 and he was sentenced in March last year.
Waylon Rivers was jailed for three years for killing his father, Timothy Rivers, 66. In June 2018, Rivers stabbed his father at their North Side farm during a heated argument. The court heard that the younger Rivers had endured a lifetime of verbal and physical abuse from his father. Initially, he was charged with a single count of murder, which was later changed to manslaughter, to which he pleaded guilty.
In June, the prosecution withdrew charges against William Isaac Ebanks Romero, who had been charged with the 2018 Christmas morning murder of Darrington Ebanks in West Bay.
Wilfred Myles Jr. was sentenced to six years after pleading guilty to causing the death by dangerous driving of Ignacio Kirzner in George Town in April. Myles had been driving more than 40 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone and was two-and-a-half times over the legal blood/alcohol limit.
In February, Paul Mannix Scott, 38, pleaded guilty to causing death by dangerous driving after nurse Sharon Gayle-Clarke was killed in February 2018 in Cayman Brac. Scott was said to have been travelling at between 50 and 80 miles per hour at the time of the accident. He is expected to be sentenced next month.
Taxi driver Roy Clivey Tamasa was sentenced to 240 hours of community service after he struck and killed Dr. Vary Jones-Leslie outside the Owen Roberts International Airport in July 2017. Tamasa was travelling at 30 miles per hour in the 15‑mile zone, on his way to pick up a passenger.
John Michael Soriano, 32, was sentenced to eight years in prison after being convicted of the September 2018 rape of a friend of his ex-girlfriend, on Cayman Brac.
Judith Douglas, 53, was convicted by a Grand Court jury for conning a dive instructor out of nearly $2 million over a five-year period. She had told him the money would help him secure Cayman Islands status.
Cayman’s largest ever corruption trial wrapped up in October with nine out of 12 defendants being convicted for fraud and corruption charges. The men and women were on trial for helping to provide people with fraudulent passing grades to an Immigration Department English-language test.
A $6.4 million money-laundering trial began in the Grand Court in December. The defendants are Daniel Alberto Aguilar Ferriozi, Francisco Antonio Di Ventura Herrera, Pedro Jose Benavides Natera, Juan Carlos Gonzales Infante and Kody Zander. The case involves two counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to conceal criminal property.
In a landmark case, in March, same-sex couple Chantelle Day and Vickie Bodden Bush petitioned the Grand Court to change Cayman’s marriage laws on the grounds that it was discriminatory to same-sex couples. Chief Justice Anthony Smellie ruled in favour of the couple and changed the law. However, in November, Court of Appeal judges set aside the ruling, but ordered the government to introduce a legal equivalent to same-sex marriage. The Court of Appeal also urged the UK government to step in if the government does not act “expeditiously” to address the issue.
The Court of Appeal also upheld lengthy prison sentences of four convicted murders and a rapist. Before 2014, a sentence of life imprisonment meant serving a sentence behind bars until one’s death. However, the Conditional Release Law outlawed the practice, and forced the courts to impose defined terms of imprisonment for each prisoner. Larry Ricketts, Brian Borden, Raziel Jeffers and Leonard Ebanks, all convicted of murder, and Jeffrey Barnes, convicted of rape, appealed the tariffs, claiming that the length of their sentences were excessive. They were all unsuccessful in their appeals.
Apart from cases, the judiciary as a whole saw several changes. Grand Court Justice Ingrid Mangatal left the bench in October. The following month, the courts reported that former Chief Magistrate Margaret Ramsay-Hale was returning to Cayman’s court as a Grand Court judge. Ramsay-Hale had left Cayman in 2014 to take up the position as chief justice of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Grand Court Judge Charles Quin died in June at the age of 68. He had played various roles in Cayman’s law community over a 30‑year period.
The court also expressed its sadness at the passing of Cayman Compass court reporter Carol Winker, who had worked for more than 34 years with the Compass. She had spent many of those years providing daily news reports from the courts.
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