Dominating the front page of the 12 June 1975 edition of The Caymanian Compass was a photo and story on a newly built home that was decimated by fire before the owners even moved in. The four-bedroom fully furnished West Bay home, owned by Ernest Jackson, was expected to be “one of the most modern homes in the immediate area”. Valued at almost $100,000, the house, according to the article, was understood not to be insured.
In another instalment of the continuing legal saga of Interbank and its former chairman Jean Doucet, Superintendent Alan Binney of the then Cayman Islands Police Force was headed to Europe on an assignment connected with extraditing Doucet to Cayman to face charges of fraud. He had been arrested by Monaco police at the request of the Cayman police.
A story on page three, ‘Divers Need Funds For Chamber’, was about the Diving Club not being able to operate its hyperbaric chamber because it was about $1,000 out of pocket. According to the article, “The club’s financial position is such that from now on prepayments will have to be made before divers can be admitted for treatment.” The previous month, the club had appealed for donations from the public to meet expenses and buy equipment, but that had been “met with zero response”.
The first part of the editorial was dedicated to press freedom. In observing Freedom of the Press Day, the Compass said that while “in Cayman there are no grounds for apprehension through interference”, in other parts of the Caribbean, the press “is far from being free or unfettered”. It noted that the newspaper has “for the most part enjoyed the cooperation of government … and we see no reason for concern in the foreseeable future”, adding “Whenever or wherever there are attempts to muzzle the Press or interfere with that freedom, then we are irrevocably in the fight.”
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