Noel Chambers report to be tabled soon

AN INTERNAL audit conducted into the death of 81-year-old Noel Chambers, who had languished in inhumane conditions at the Tower Street Correctional Centre for four decades without trial, has been completed and is expected to be tabled in the Houses of Parliament shortly.

Minister without Portfolio in the Ministry of National Security, Senator Matthew Samuda, told the Senate yesterday that the audit also looked into the treatment of other mentally ill persons within the correctional facilities.

Nine months ago, the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) revealed that Chambers died in state custody while awaiting trial for 40 years.

National debate ensued after INDECOM provided graphic details of how Chambers, whose body bore bedsores and bites from bedbugs, had been held at the pleasure of the governor general after being charged with murder on February 4, 1980. He died in January 2020.

An inmate is detained at the pleasure of the Queen, the governor general, or the court if that person is unfit to plead or is found guilty but is suffering from a mental disorder.

However, since 2007, when the Criminal Justice Administration Act was amended to outlaw imprisonment at the governor general’s pleasure, anyone detained on mental-health grounds is held at the court’s pleasure.

Despite officially being passed fit to plead several times over his four-decade incarceration at the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, Chambers was never brought before a judge.

Yesterday, Samuda, who has been assigned policy oversight responsibility for the correctional services, said that he would seek Cabinet’s formal approval of the report next week, adding that there would be no delay in tabling the document as committed by the administration in June 2020.