Steve Lenford Harvey: 10 years gone

I cannot believe that it is so quickly time has passed that “Big Nose” has passed or I should say was tragically taken from us in a case that was bizarre to begin with and ended in arrests and trials of the accused. He was forced to leave his home on the night of November 30, 2005 in Patrick City by gunmen who invaded the house and robbed himself and other occupants; at which point a computer was perused alongside phones with text messages from where a profiling exercise ensued to arrive at a homophobic conclusion. 

TVJ Interview in Kingston 

at Jamaica AIDS Support former offices at Upper Musgrave Avenue Kingston 10

Steve was forced to drive away and killed elsewhere. It is now clear to many that the profiling was being done all along as the house was being staked out despite the fact the residence is on a main road and would be supposedly less targeted given also the middle class status of the area.

I came into contact with Lenford in the nineties while I volunteered for Jamaica AIDS Support then; the ‘For Life’ was added later and he was a Peer Educator and GLABCOM Steering Committee member as well. He also had a hand in the male netball team training and management. Then in 2006 onwards he was a member of the ‘gay church’ Sunshine Cathedral Jamaica, SCJ and choir member; I remember the rehearsal sessions which were funny as he was not one of the better singers then lol. 

He was also a politics man and an open if not staunch supporter of the People’s National Party, PNP and his beloved Mama P (Portia Simpson) I wonder how now he would react given the air of elections around and the strong criticisms of Mama P and her less than articulate style; coupled with the neglected suggestion promise of a conscience vote/buggery review. He was also a good friend of first time Member of Parliament Raymond Pryce well before his sojourn into politics as he was a volunteer as well in my time too of Jamaica AIDS Support for Life JASL before moving on to the Jamaica Consumers’ League. 

Harvey then took on his biggest work yet at LACASSO - 

Harvey became involved with Jamaica AIDS Support in 1997.He became the group's Kingston co-ordinator, and in this position primarily worked to ensure that the marginalised groups within the country – including prisoners, sex workers, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people – had access to information about the HIV/AIDS virus. He was selected as Jamaica's representative at the Latin America and Caribbean Council of AIDS Service Organizations. He was also a registered delegate to the conference of the People's National Party.

Jamaican police arrested four individuals whom they then committing with murder in the furtherance of a robbery. The accused remained in police custody for almost ten years before the case came to court. At that point, the police dropped their murder charges against two of the accused. The other two, Dwayne Owen and Andrew West, went on trial and were found unanimously guilty of murder by a jury. Although prosecutors had requested capital punishment in the case, the judge sentenced them to life in prison with a minimum of thirty years before becoming eligible for parole.

Following investigations, in 2005 police arrested four individuals – Dwayne Owen, Andrew West, Ryan Wilson, and Chevaughn Gibson – charging them all with committing murder in the furtherance of a robbery. Defence lawyers repeatedly complained that the prosecution had been late in handing over relevant documents to them.

The case was brought before the Home Circuit Court on April 24, 2014, however it could not proceed because important documents had not been served on the defence.The witnesses for the case, who included ten police officers and two civilians, were bound over. Senior Puisne Judge Gloria Smith stated that no further adjournments of the case would be permitted, ordering the Director of Public Prosecutions to make full disclosure to the defence, and insisting that the trial must start on May 19. In her words, "This case has been going on for far too long and has reached the point where something must happen."However, on that date the trial was postponed again due to the unavailability of a courtroom, being rescheduled for June 1. At that date it was again postponed, this time due to a shortage of available jurors, with the new date being set for July 7.

In early July 2014, the prosecution announced that they were dropping all charges against Wilson, who was declared free to go after over eight years in prison. They had determined that at the time of the murder he had been in custody at the Constant Spring Police Station.[8] The prosecution also stated that it was dropping the murder charges against Gibson, who would instead be charged with misprision of felony. After a three week trial, in late July a twelve-person jury unanimously found both Owen and West guilty of murder. The state prosecutors, Kathy Pryce and Karen Seymour Johnson, requested that Owen and West face the death penalty. However, in November Justice Lloyd Hibbert sentenced them to life in prison, stipulating that they must serve a minimum of thirty years before becoming eligible for parole. He stated that in sentencing the pair he took into account the fact that they had already spent a decade in custody. In December, both Owen and West launched appeals against their conviction.

Independently of the Harvey case, West was also charged with being involved in the murder of Jamie Lue, a financial analyst at Alliance Capital Limited, who had been abducted, robbed and killed in December 2005.

Really miss him after all these years.

Peace & tolerance

H