Executor for Toots’ estate retains lawyer
ONE OF the executors of the estate for reggae icon Toots Hibbert is now officially seeking legal advice. This was confirmed to The Sunday Gleaner by Ian Wilkinson, QC. “My firm, Wilkinson Law, has been retained by an executor of the estate of the late Frederick ‘Toots’ Hibbert,” he said.
Wilkinson, whose firm offers “efficient and first-class representation to its clientèle” in a range of services, lists among them civil litigation, probate and administration, contract law, judicial review, and constitutional law. “We are in the process of assisting our client to deal with all germane matters in the best interest of Mr Hibbert’s entire family and the people of Jamaica, whom he loved dearly,” Wilkinson said.
This move comes in the midst of a family disagreement surrounding what is deemed an appropriate funeral for the reggae icon, who passed away on September 11. The Hibbert family made the decision, which proved to be unpopular with some, to have a private funeral and also to inter reggae legend at Dovecot
Memorial Park rather than Treadlight District, in Clarendon, where Toots was born. Doreen Hibbert, Toots’ widow, told The Gleaner last week, in reference to Dovecot: “I know that everybody vex, but I am doing the best I can. I can’t get anywhere suitable to bury him, and I don’t want to keep the body any longer.”
However, the interment scheduled for last Thursday was stalled, because the family members in charge could not find the burial order, which is necessary, by law, for the burial to take place. The body was taken back to Perry’s Funeral Home in St Catherine.
The senior partner at Wilkinson Law was the moderator at Thursday’s thanksgiving service at the chapel of Perry’s Funeral Home. He also gave an intense remembrance, in which he called on the Government of Jamaica to elevate the
“super-duper star” to the Order of Merit, an accolade reserved for those persons who have achieved eminent international distinction in the fields of science, the arts, literature, or any other endeavour.
In 2012, Toots was bestowed with the Order of Jamaica.
Wilkinson hailed Toots as a philosopher who “spoke to the people of philosophy through the music” and noted that Frederick ‘Toots’ Hibbert “deserves his place in immortality and deserves to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame”.