Exiled Caymanian killers must remain in UK prisons

A pair of gang killers deemed too dangerous to be held in HMP Northward have lost their latest bid to return to Cayman to serve out their life sentences.

Osbourne Douglas and his half-brother Justin Ramoon were convicted in June 2016 of the murder of Jason Powery, described by the trial judge as “public execution of the most evil nature”.

They were transferred to high-security prisons in the UK in June 2017 under the Colonial Prisoners Removal Act 1884, after the governor concluded they could not be safely contained in Cayman.

The decision was based on secret intelligence that the brothers were orchestrating criminal activity from inside HMP Northward and potentially planning a jailbreak involving armed associates brought in from Jamaica.

Both men have consistently denied they are gang members or that they posed the threat alleged.

During a series of lengthy appeals, lawyers for the two men sought to see the evidence against them. The courts decided that police and prison officials were not required to disclose the precise intelligence, which they argued had to be withheld for national security reasons.

The Privy Council ultimately ruled that their appeal against the transfer to the UK could proceed on the basis of summaries of the classified material.

The case went back to the Grand Court, which ruled against the brothers in November 2024, and now to the Court of Appeal, with the same result.

In a judgment published last week, the higher court found that then-Governor Helen Kilpatrick was entitled to base her decision on classified intelligence assessments, and that the courts could fairly review that decision on the basis of summaries of that material, even though the underlying documents were never disclosed to the brothers or their lawyers.

Claims of interference with their right to family life, including contact with young children, was outweighed by the public safety justification for the transfers, the panel of judges decided.

The brothers must remain in custody in the UK but could appeal again to the Privy Council.

Northward can’t hold Category A prisoners

The case, extensively covered by the Compass in our Prison Papers investigation, raised persistent questions about the adequacy of HMP Northward.

The original justification for the transfers included the assessment that Northward was structurally unsuitable for Category A prisoners.

Our ongoing Inside Stories investigation has found that no substantive steps have since been taken to address that, with no contract for a new or upgraded facility yet agreed.

The case also sparked a significant constitutional debate about secret trials.

The Privy Council ruled in 2023 that closed material procedures, hearings where classified evidence is shown to a judge but withheld from the defendants and their lawyers, could not be used in Cayman without specific legislation.

Parliament subsequently passed the Civil Proceedings (Closed Material Procedure) Act in March 2024, but the law came too late to affect the brothers’ case, which had already proceeded on the basis of the intelligence summaries.