In late December of last year, aspiring politician Beverly Castillo made the worst kind of news: she was accused of a land grab just before she resigned as CEO in the Ministry of Natural Resources to pursue politics. The story as it turns out, is more nuanced than that, but the broad strokes remain: a freshly forfeited parcel of leased land was awarded to Castillo's mother and son, Maude Williams and Mervin Castillo Jr.
The Pickwood family who had held the lease for thirty years said they had been jilted of the prime piece of undeveloped real estate at the corner of Albert Hoy and Chetumal Streets without notice. The Lands Department said the Pickwood's had failed to live up to the basic terms of their lease.
The Pickwood's got an injunction issued and today, they went to the Supreme Court before the Chief Justice to see if the injunction should be set aside. The hearing was held all afternoon in Chambers with Audrey Matura Shepherd appearing for the Pickwoods. At the end of the hearing, Matura Shepherd gave us a recap:..
Audrey Matura-Shepherd, Attorney for Bernadette Pickwood
"All the defendants, from the ministry as well as the private individuals have applied to have the injunction discharged. That's a normal thing, if there is an injunction you will try to get it removed. We have applied to have it continued. What we have this evening was the chief justice hearing the arguments for or against, us saying why it should remain, them saying why it shouldn't remain. He has not given his decision whether to discharge it or not, but the order today is that it remains in effect until the 28th of January which is next week Tuesday, at which time he will give his decision."
Mike Rudon, reporter Ch 5
"Could you give us the arguments in a nutshell?"
Audrey Matura-Shepherd, Attorney for Bernadette Pickwood
"Well basically the argument from the government is that look, this person has breached the terms of their lease, therefore they are not entitled to any benefit. They also said that there is a remedy that she can get other than getting back her land, she can get money. They also felt that there was material non-disclosure, that she should have disclosed that Maud Williams and Mervin Castillo already had title. We hope that by next Tuesday we will hear the results. The ways it could go, it could be injunction remains until the end of the hearing. No injunction remains, there is still a hearing. Injunction remains and there is settlement or no injunction and there is an application by the different defendants to try and not even make the matter reach the court."
Bernard Pickwood, Brother of Bernadette Pickwood
"Definitely it's not a good feeling for us to have to go to this level to seek the justice that we think is due to us. It is definitely a cost to us that we think we should not have to incur, at the end of the day even the ministry has granted that they made an error in not following the procedure of law. The best way for them to have corrected that, given the interest that my sister have had in this land for more than 30 years versus 2 months that the defendants have, I think it is clear cut that they should have just corrected that error and just have given them another option."
Across from Matura-Shepherd, Magali Perdomo appeared for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Vanessa Retreage appeared for Beverly Castillo, Maud Williams and Mervin Castillo.
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