Silent NO MORE!

I tried… please forgive me.

Many persons who know me well and those who were readers of my previous blog and know my feelings towards certain people and social injustices in general have been wondering why I have been so silent regarding two MAJOR events and for exactly two weeks I have been SEETHING!

Rodney Beckles, professional drug abuser, murderer and son of social prostitute Hilary Beckles, was acquitted! Somehow (though not surprisingly so) a jury found that Rodney Beckles did indeed inflict 21 stab wounds in SELF DEFENSE. Overkill anyone? News extract below:

Jury frees Beckles of murder charge

November 28, 2007

An 11-member jury deliberated Monday for two hours before freeing 22-year-old university student Rodney Beckles of the murder of 28-year-old Khalil Campbell, son of Supreme Court Judge, Lennox Campbell.

The jury’s verdict was greeted with disapproval by a family member and friends of the deceased. A friend of the deceased, who was in court, rushed towards Beckles as he was leaving the dock after Justice Kay Beckford adjourned court.

The man appeared as if he were going to attack Beckles.

“Remember what mi tell you,” the man said to Beckles. “Is this a threat, is this a threat?” one of Beckles’ lawyers asked.

The police ordered the man to leave the courtroom.

Cried openly

“There is no justice in the courts,” a relative of the deceased shouted as she wept openly outside the courtroom after the verdict.

Beckles’ parents, who were in court, also cried after they heard the verdict.

Beckles, who is a former captain of Jamaica’s under-17 table tennis team, and son of Univer-sity of the West Indies professor Hilary Beckles, had been on trial in the Home Circuit Court since last week Monday.

One of the jurors fell ill last week and the judge had to continue the case with 11 jurors.

Chillum pipe

Campbell was fatally stabbed on January 3, after he asked Beckles and a friend for a draw from a chillum pipe, which they were smoking. Beckles had been in custody since then.

The judge, in her summation, told the jury that they should not be influenced by prejudice or sympathy for the accused or the deceased. The jury found that Beckles was not guilty of murder or manslaughter. Beckles, who was represented by defence lawyers, Patrick Atkinson, Deborah Martin and Robert Fletcher, gave sworn testimony in his defence and was thoroughly cross-examined by prosecutors, Caroline Hay and Ann-Marie Feurtado-Richards.


He said he acted in self-defence after Campbell, who was known to be mentally ill, rushed at him as a raging bull and held on to his leg.

He said he began hitting him and when his leg was released, he saw blood on his clothes and blood on the deceased’s chest.

He said he and a friend were smoking ganja from a chillum pipe and it was after they denied Campbell’s request that the incident took place.

Defensive injuries

The prosecution led evidence that there were 16 superficial injuries to the body and two stab wounds.

The fatal injury was a stab wound to the chest which penetrated the heart. The pathologist said he saw defensive injuries to the body.

The defence brought medical evidence to show that the deceased was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and cannabis abuse, and was aggressive when he did not get his medication.

Author: Gleaner Reporter
Source: Jamaica Gleaner

Only in a society like Jamaica is a drug induced murder grounds for self defense. I cry along with the family…

Following this chilling event, a few days later, professional education destroyer, cricket enthusiast and social prostitute Hilary Beckles became SIR Hilary Beckles to add to his list of arguably undeserved accolades. It is at this point one realises that a knighthood is bullocks these days and worth as much as $10 in gas. I hereby submit to you my desire to be given a Dayhood.

Yet we wonder why metropolitan countries look down on us ‘third worlders’ with such disdain and amusement- I wouldn’t take us seriously either! Furthermore I would wonder if we’re all puffing on the same chillum pipe- still waiting for a clear definition/illustration of what that is.


7 Responses to Silent NO MORE!

  1. Powerful post. Numerous reforms need to be made to correct these disparities. I’m just a little guy, but it is evident the justice system is crumbling.

  2. David says:

    Well,well. Some hard comments. Are you being fair Sir? Were you there to listen to the the arguments? If you were not what political context would you have used to arrive at your conclusion? Remember we are dealing with a law which is charged with dealing with the facts of the case which are known and not emotion.

  3. superlative1 says:

    It is funny how you say it deals with facts not emotions when it was a jury of ‘peers’ and emotion is impossible to be removed from any decision that is made. Furthermore, the victim was made to be the aggressor with a condition he had and claims “he gets violent when he didn’t get his medication” is WEED his medication because that is what they’re basically trying to draw a line connecting! Not to mention the fact that this was a case of drug abusers murdering one another not a simple case of man on the street randomly attacking another man who had to defend himself- furthermore 21 stabs does not self defense make! If this were anyone else, I doubt you would be so quick to comment on the harshness of my statements.

  4. Katrina says:

    I must say from the time I heard of the murder and who was involved, I was more than 50% sure that Rodney Beckle’s punishment would have been nothing severe, just because he is Hilary Beckle’s son. I was however curious to see what kind of punishment he would have gotten seeing as how it was a Supreme Court Judge’s son he murdered. I was surprised about the acquittal (NO punishment??), however I “got over it” because all society has been reduced to now is who you know and what influence you or someone you know has. Were this some ordinary person’s son, he would have been jailed for quite some time. Tis a sad reality we live in…

    I also wonder, why is it that children whose parents have considerable influence in society tend to have the worse behaviours/habits? Or is it that it is noticed more because they are placed in the spotlight because of their parents? Just a question I’ve been pondering…

  5. […] I hear Rodney Beckles has nothing much going on in his life right now, I could get him to do it. Just hand him a chillum […]

  6. mr best says:

    brilliant article. on point.

  7. josie says:

    Isn’t it funny how the incident happened jan 2007 and by nov 2007 the man was tried and acquitted. How speedily our justice system works when it so desires. Ill fated are all those without links and lineage and have to rot in prison a good many yrs before any kind of trial takes place… and dont get weh.

Leave a Reply


WordPress.com Logo


Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: