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Submitted by the Mahogany Coconut Think Tank and Watchdog Group
Alair Shepherd QC
Alair Shepherd QC

The behaviour of a Queens Counsel toward a female judge, in Barbados, is another manifestation of the disrespect being displayed toward our women. According to published reports, the Queens Counsel demonstrated his displeasure with the judge by lifting his robe, backing the judge bending over and inviting her to kiss a part of his anatomy.

This single act reveals that disrespect for our women is now rampant at all social and educational levels. We will remain in the forefront of calling for our women to be respected but there is a bigger picture emerging here. Our Caribbean societies have always elevated some professions beyond godlike status. The medical and legal professions have been the chief beneficiaries of such adulation.

While we have had the occasional professional problems with our doctors, we suggest that such incidents have been for from widespread. We can therefore, with some objectivity, concur that the medical professional has maintained high professional standards. However we are aware that some will suggest that unprofessional conduct within the medical professional is not usually made public.

However, we have the legal professionals constantly escaping censorship for unprofessional behaviour. Sometimes they are given a slap on the risk or allowed to flee the country, leaving clients in financial shambles. It is essentially a group with entrenched support in the now powerful political managerial class. To put it bluntly, they are allowed to behave as if they are above the same legal system, they were trained to protect.

While we do not claim to be experts on the legal profession, we are aware that a Queens Counsel is considered to be a senior lawyer and have some professional privileges. We also understand that their fees reflect their professional elevation. We are therefore concerned that their needs to be better screening of those being elevated to the professional heights they enjoy.

While the Chief Justice may be expected to become involved in this sordid issue, we are uncertain of his reach. While we will expect him to at least comment, it will be folly to put pressure on him when this kind of professional vulgarity surfaces. We must bear in mind that this is more of a physical and personal assault on the judge than an outright legal question. We however believe that if a professional code of conduct has been seriously breached, that nothing short of censorship and the removal of Queens Counsel privileges are to be expected.


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  1. Jeff Cumberbatch Avatar
    Jeff Cumberbatch

    @David @6.31pm yesterday:

    Yes, that is the general responsibility of the CJ, but this is a one-off event that occurred in the face of a court with all the power to effect swift and appropriate justice. Since the court and judge chose to do nothing, one might argue that it/she was not contemned. The CJ was not there, so his comments on the matter could only be generalities about the proper conduct of counsel


  2. @ Crrsoe”’
    The Point of JA argument is society” ACCEPTANCE” of things immoral. In JA comment She uses “Same sex marriage ” which might be a little bit overblown and other sexual activity as an example to demonstrate the point and arguably can be applied to issues dealing with moral judgement or as in this case AS lack of moral judgement and the way he choosed to respond.
    JA example however seems to fit into how society can easily “accept ” immorality as normal which leads to more acceptance of these issues on a grander scale.
    Crusoe if one does not understand the point of reasoning behind a comment put forward it is easier to bypass than to insult or demean the person as stupid cause in this case one can if they choose can called you Stupid. However i think Not! since your interpretation might be limited in your ability to understand the ‘ Reasoning” embedded in a comment and your inabilty to decipher.


  3. Thanks Jeff, of course it could all change if the video apparatus worked to perfection and did record the incident.


  4. The judge has to shoulder blame in this case, she could have acted swiftly and had Alair immediately imprisoned……..she is fully aware of her powers. However, in this case, for whatever reason she decides to pretend fright. As I said before, if it was one of her own people she would have had them immediately sent to the mental or Dodds without missing a beat………why did she give Alair a pass on this, he should have been made a prime example. Let’s see if the BAR also gives him a pass.


  5. Baffy
    You know I do my homework before I speak. I understand that Alair is your “friend”. Have the heart to tell de man that it was a wusless act.

    My concern is for the ordinary citizens in this country who would have been man handled by the police and court officials and be charged with disrespect for the court. You can not even sit in the supreme court and put your elbows on the table, but I glad Alair can skin his white ass and get away with it.

  6. Caswell Franklyn Avatar
    Caswell Franklyn

    Crusoe

    I must defend AC. When has she ever reasoned out anything? You can’t expect her to start now.


  7. I am very sure that Alair had a god good reason for doing what he did. The legal system in Barbados is very shitty; I do not know why Baffy do not do law and be in his element.


  8. I just don’t get it, one morning I went to central police station because a friend had to deal with a matter………..I walked up the steps to the traffic court and stood about 4 steps down looking in to see if I could see my friend, the police officer (female) asked me what I want, I explained to her why I was looking inside, she says ‘move off the steps and don’t look in here, you hear me, I would lock you up’.

    Now tell me this…………should’nt Alair had taken it one step further and slapped the judge, just to see if he could get away with it…….i think so. Barbados is beginning to creep me out.


  9. Well Well
    If you foop your way to be judge and every body knows that ability did not put you there and then continue to behave as if you bright bright, then the Alairs of this world shall skin their ass at you and you CAN do nothing about it.

    Baffy do not go and skin your ass at any judge; remember I said “if”.


  10. Lemuel………………that is exactly what creeps me out. she did the f***ing, he did the b***ing……………….that is downright creepy what they all do to make it to the top with titles no less. I love the saying, only milk and scum rises to the top………neither of those two look like milk to me.


  11. Lemuel……….here is another thought, as disgusting as it sounds, they both could have been encroaching on each other’s human properties…….this could be personal. I said could, remember that………no where in the world would a judge allow that behavior and the culprit walks away…………the public is entitled to a coherent explanation, she is after all being paid from public funds. This is beyond creepy and sick.


  12. Caswell

    I expect you to nit pick on anything ac says , However WHo Are You to cast moral judgement on any one knowing that you have had serious allegations brought against you dealing with infidelity to theft of govt property .
    However i know you are going to say such allegations were dismissed and unfounded but needless to say that such allegations were of such a serious nature they had to dealt with by the courts.As with the issue of infidelity it places you in the same boat as AS when it comes to “Things immoral” you moral compass too is broken .”Judge not lest you be judge:” LOSER!
    Think on those things.


  13. Here we go again. This blog will be closed if it continues on the current trend.


  14. David
    Who are you trying to protect here.


  15. @Lemuel

    BU’s position has been stated repeatedly. We reserve the right to close a blog if in our discretion it merits it. I this case Caswell has responded to these allegation over and over which is a matter of court record. The warning stands.


  16. @ Lemuel
    You talk about not being able to sit with elbows on tables in the supreme court. What about the old ass English these people are insisting on using and think they smart. The fact is that the REAL English lawyers/barristers, in the mother country, have stop using the whereas, hitherto-fore etc a long time ago. Is this not contempt for the people of Barbados? Had cause recently to hire an international lawyer. When he so the shit lawyers in Barbados still writing the man was laughing hysterically.


  17. watching

    I was just re-reading this post and realised that yesterday you said that this is the first time that you agree with me. Let me congratulations for finally arriving on the right side of an issue. I don’t expect you to continue but it is good to know that you were right for a change.


  18. @Well Well | April 14, 2013 at 7:51 AM |………..I walked up the steps to the traffic court and stood about 4 steps down looking in to see if I could see my friend, the police officer (female) asked me what I want, I explained to her why I was looking inside, she says ‘move off the steps and don’t look in here, you hear me, I would lock you up’.
    ………………………………………………………………………………………

    Well Well yuh killing me. Your best ever post. Nobody messes with Bajan policewomen to their credit they hate everybody equally.


  19. I keep saying the antiquated way things are done in Bim, including law, is laughed at outside, even in England…………….and these jokes still believe within themselves that they are impressing the British…………they are just comic relief in 2013, from the PM coming down, that includes the office of the GG…………why can they not be creative in originality……….sick of this, they have now become a side show, how much more embarrassment will the country have to endure, I will give the majority of the population a pass because most are unaware, but those lawyers and judges who knowingly continue to perpetrate this fraud on society replete with their ugly wigs should be in prison.


  20. Doctor……..these people carrying around hatred of each other like a badge of honor………….scary.


  21. There was a time not too long ago when an incident like AS and SR would have occurred and the actors privy to it would have swept it under the carpet (this includes the media). Today in less than an hour the message is able to reach all corners of the globe. The days of doing the business behind close doors are coming to an end. Those who wish t continue can suffer the consequences.


  22. A lawyer is at at core a simple coward. Sheps would have done nothing without having the fullest confidence (or certain knowledge to use their phraseology, wouldn’t surprise me if he was in possession of signed documentation) that he would have gotten away with it.


  23. @BAffy

    Here it is in a forum of ‘regular’ people we are discussing if AS would have gotten away with this and that. The irony of it all. The fact that what he did was plain wrong has been forgotten. Not dissimilar to the ZR culture we continue to slide.

  24. old onion bags Avatar

    old onion bags | April 13, 2013 at 1:29 PM |

    Is this the first time so called greater mortals of higher office (and who should know better) showed blatant disrespect for The Laws of Barbados?….Why if I remember right,.. fragrant changes were made to flippant laws, blinded eyes and heads turned the other way just to bee hive a few….not to mention the most RECENT and the clarion calls that followed. But you know what…these are but SIGNS OF THE TIMES….Black pot can’t call out the kettle and expect no further ramifications …When you are of such players, anything unorthodox can present itself esp when others have so nonchalantly got away with it, some most injudiciously too. Such is life on this lil independent philtre called ‘two barbadoes nowadays’…..He that is without sin , let him cast the first stone…
    CONTINUED……

    There is more in this mortar than a pestle….What was exhibited here for the whole Barbados to see, speaks of disdain for the system. Put bluntly ..it stinks. It is time to overhaul the jalopy. Tardiness with a her Majesty’s Council’s matter …while offering him nothing more than a farthing of an excuse? Irreconcilable. Are some of those learned not reading Greek ? Have some not heard of NICE and Civil Servants’ Reform to stamp out inefficiencies (regardless of caste)? What kind of example are you setting hereYour Persian Honor, for the common ordinary Mead PERCY to see? ….even if AS QC uses this opportunity as a power play moment to register his jackal.

    Mr. Jeff Cumberbatch may have called it correctly .…“nothing else will come of this” and even further (Caswell), nothing would have either, even if addressed at the time of occurrence for fear of the Leviathan.

    This one will go down no lesser than Andrew Pilgrim’s cuss out at the O.K. Coral…..or the recent voters’ hopscotch where in Alice’s Wonderland land, Mr. Tin Man skipped merrily down the road. But tarry a while.. I do recall a lecturer from the Hill .. Ms. Dumuiere me thinks, spending a few days in jail for contempt. She however, was given the immediate opportunity to apologize, and refused. Mediation hopes gone right thru the window.

    “Who is left with but clean hands“…“Behold mountains shall labor….what born …a mouse.”
    Have we not yet learned?


  25. Having re-read this post, I noticed that several comments seemed to be trying to turn things around and placing blame on the judge. Let me state up front that I have the highest regard for Madam Justice Doctor Sonia Richards, so some of you might think that my position would be coloured by my admiration of this lady. Her intellect is far superior than most of the lawyers that appear before her. She was a lady long before her present office dictated that she be styled “Mu Lady”. She is definitely not used to this type of low class behaviour, and certainly cannot be blamed for Shepherd’s unprofessional conduct.

    I can understand her failure to punish Shepherd immediately. Her sensibilities were thrown into disarray and by the time she regained her composure, Shepherd would have beaten a hasty retreat from the precincts of her court. He did not stand his ground and face the consequences like a man. The fleet-footed Shepherd was quickly off the scene.


  26. Caswell……………..I get your point, but would her sensibilities have paused that long if a member of the public had dissed her and the court like that?? Is her sensibilities on a time lapse for different people……I know white judges male as well as female who would not have wasted a second in locking him up, their training, as well as the law would automatically kick in on auto pilot., if not it would have been enraged anger at the audacity of that creep………..if she is that slow to react, she should not be judging anyone.


  27. By the way, i am definitely not impressed by all her pretty titles, i think it’s all pretentious nonsense anyway………….i would be more impressed if she had gone after lowlife ghetto style.


  28. @ Caswell
    You admire he so that means she is competent smart and a super judge?…but then again you also admire Crane Scott….
    Perhaps it is the goatmilk….


  29. Notice ac would continue to defend herself from those who for whatever reason feels challenged or belive that i am some kind of an operative for the DLP and insist and persist on attacking my character by using such derorgarty terms and name calling words to such effect as Stupid or Idiot . Such words are in my opinion are derogatory and i will be forced to defend myself. i therfore implore those characters like caswell to cease and desist from inflaming my sensibilities cause i am not an IDIOT as he so choose to characterise me and ac would respond accordingly to such ignorance.


  30. The ignorance of it all. An anonymous claimant and an anonymous plaintiff seeking to defend themselves on an anonymous blog.

  31. old onion bags Avatar

    @ David

    Classy…touche’…ac ‘the ignorant’……classy indeed

    ignorantomous stupidamous’…..how is my Greek ?


  32. I have not been able to prove it yet, but i understand the judge’s retreat was quicker than Alair’s.


  33. @ David
    Look boss, you are making a mountain out of a molehill OK?
    Who decided that a person bending over with their back to you is an insult? Which law does it violate?
    Suppose he had made a cross with his two index fingers (allegedly useful in repelling witches – as ac can verify) should he be charged with contempt too…?
    Suppose the man was genuinely tying his laces and whoever published the incident just hates his guts? …or hates the judges guts?

    This damn incident did not even occur in court…. It the reason for meeting in chambers not to dispense with all the foolish formalities in the first place?
    Stupsssss
    How is this even relevant in….

    A court system where nothing works
    Judges come late everyday and spent the time adjourning matters..
    Judges write decisions 20 years late
    Lawyers openly steal people’s land and money
    DPP does not believe in murder and sides with the accused to avoid such charges

    BRAVO to Shepard…
    …..BUSHIE MOONS THE WHOLE LOT OF THEM…

    brass bowls!

    …man close the blog in truth do…..

  34. old onion bags Avatar

    Bushy to the rescue…..


  35. For those who ar wondering why the term “mooning” a white botsy is large, and round and white like a full moon. Thus mooning.

    Thus black people can’t moon.


  36. Bushie……………as the laws go, you cannot diss a judge in chambers either without serious consequences…….they may have changed that in Bim or it does not apply……….but it applies everywhere else, that is the kind of power bestowed on judges, and their should be cameras in her chambers.


  37. @Crusoe

    “People taking 1+1 and making 12…I don’t get it.”

    Ok, ok. 1+1 ain’t ain’t 12.

    But the way I work it out 1+1=11

    The Simple Simon ain’t so simple.


  38. @Bush Tea

    You are truly trivializing this event. We live in a society where mooning is considered to be a disrespectful act and stated by Simple Simon, a behaviour associated with common class whose limited vocab and literacy precipitated such behaviour, a la Karen with the 2×4. Let us begin the discussion at this point and leave the theoretical for the classroom.

  39. Caswell Franklyn Avatar
    Caswell Franklyn

    Well Well

    I believe her sensibilities would have been offended whoever did it, and I believe her reaction would have been slow in either case. She is not used to this type of behaviour. In my opinion, she would have been able to deal with any other offender when she recovered her sensibilities because the Marshal would have apprehended anyone else.


  40. AC
    You and Island know you love Caswell; you could whisper it to me no one would hear you here.

    Well Well
    You and i are the only ones concerned about how this legal system brutalizing poor people. Only today, woman in a nighty at the police station because she asked that a search warrant be executed properly. When the police go to the heights and terraces, they allow those people to see and read the search warrant, but in the poor districts it is a kick to the door and the warrant has been served. When we start to see push back from the socially deprived areas, BU shall full of calls for death penalty, but when these people are being unfaired, no one cries out.

    David
    I hope people have not forgotten the good work that Alair continues to do for those prisoners who are not in a position to defend themselves. I have always admired him for that But Alair you can not be skinning your white botsy at the women judges.


  41. In Barbados if a person is going to the registry of the court to pick up a birth, death or marriage certificate he or she can’ t wear flips flops, or a sleeveless dress into the registry. The security guard would forbid that citizen/taxpayer/voter from entering their own court. And if they refuse to leave a policemen would arrest them for refusing a lawful instruction.

    But in the corridors of the court an old white guy can skin his pooch at a female judge in the presence of multiple witnesses, and cameras and nothing happens. He is free to appear before any judge and any court in Barbados that very day, and the next and the next. And that judge and the others will agree to see him

    And we wonder why people have come to disrespect the state.

    If Chief Justice Marston Gibson has any balls he will act on this.

    This is not about freedom of expression.

    This is gross disrespect for an official of the court.

    I can bet Alair would not skin his ass at the Queen, or Obama.

    i can bet he would never have dared to skin his ass at Owen Arthur.

    ’cause we know Owen wouldda deal did he.


  42. Ok……….I am hoping Alair tries a repeat performance.


  43. But David, the blogmaster I forget to tell you that I like your headline real bad. Class is class.

    “QC Showed Judge His Silk” the only ting I wouldda add

    “QC showed judge his red silk boxers”


  44. Lemuel………..the police in Barbados cannot even get into the gated communities, they can only be brutish to poor people.


  45. But wait where are the consertative social commentators on this.

    If a school boy or girl had skinned their ass at Matthew Farley we wouldda hear them all over this. Talking about moral degradation and the end is nigh’ and all that kinda thing.

    Where dem?


  46. @Simple

    The credit for the headline goes to Caswell who suggested it on an earlier blog.


  47. Caswell
    I understand you love and respect for the dainty lady but these judges bout here doing a whole lot of shite and when the lawyers that they uphold in the shite does something like this it a sheer comic relief. I do not believe that people in our justice system understand the full import of what they do or what are the consequences of what do they do. If they did we would see police being hauled before the court for obstructing justice and lawyers spending time at Dodds for abusing the legal system. This is why we will have an ASS like judge Worrel calling for the legalization of drugs.


  48. @Crusoe “One of the king makers in the DLP was allegedly a buller…but he was a brilliant man. ”

    If what!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Cammie Tudor, brilliant Barbados Scholar, graduate of Oxford University, DLP Cabinet Minister and king maker, and Ambassador WAS a buller.

    If what!!!!!!!!!!!!!


  49. @well well” the police officer (female) asked me what I want, I explained to her why I was looking inside, she says ‘move off the steps and don’t look in here, you hear me, I would lock you up’.”

    Happened to me too. The policeman was what they used to call “big black, and ignorant” looking.

    I get los’ real fast.

    My crime?

    I was wearing a sleeveless garment.


  50. Simple Simon…….from what I heard about this family, that was just the beginning of alot of the accumulated corruption in bajan politics we are witnessing that is a carry over from that era………….we can’t seem to rid the island of those particular demons that took hold.

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