Freedom looms for ‘Rassimong’ Small

Mentally ill man poised to be freed after 16 years behind bars

WESTERN BUREAU:

IT WOULD appear that a recommendation that was ignored over a decade and a half ago could be the formula used to free Trelawny native Morris ‘Rassimong’ Small, who has been languishing between jails and prison for the past 16 years without standing trial.

On Tuesday, Hugh Faulkner, the executive director of the Legal Aid Council, said that when Small makes his next appearance in court on July 30, efforts will be made to have him housed at an infirmary until the conclusion of his case rather than to have him sent back into the penal system.

Small’s protracted incarceration without trial came to the fore following the death of 81-yearsold Noel Chambers, who died on January 27 in prison, where he had been for the past 40 years awaiting trial for murder. Like Small, he was deemed unfit to plea.

In the case of Small, had the Trelawny Municipal Corporation acted on a recommendation by the former councillor of the Sherwood Content division, Fernandez Smith, who, basically, made the same recommendation that Faulkner is now making, at the time of Small’s arrest, chances are that he would not have had to undergo the inhumane experience of the past 16 years.

BAD FOR MENTAL HEALTH

According to former prison doctor Raymoth Notice, being locked up with or without treatment is not helpful to mentally ill persons because the additional stress and frustration generally exacerbate rather than help their condition.

“... any stressful situation is going to cause a person to have a revolt into a state of unsoundness ... the bigger problem is not in the prisons, it is in the jails. I don’t think any treatment at all is being carried out in the jails,” said Notice.

While he no longer is a sitting councillor, Smith, who again highlighted Small’s case during the public uproar over Chambers’ death, feels relieved that although 16 years late, it finally seems that Small will be taken out of the penal system and placed in an infirmary, where he can receive treatment for his mental illness.

A Falmouth resident who remembers Small in his pre-mental illness days when he was a popular personality in the area is happy that he seems poised to regain his freedom, despite his mental state.

“Man who get convicted fi murderer a serve less than 10 years, yet dem lock up Rassimong fi almost 20 years fi bruk a car windscreen. What a wickedness!” said the man, who asked not to be named. “Only rich people get justice a Jamaica.”