BY T K WHYTE Observer correspondent ?editorial@jamaicaobserver.com

SPANISH TOWN, St Catherine — A man who has been languishing in the Spanish Town police lock-up for two years without trial, last week appealed to Senior St Catherine Resident Magistrate Marcia Dunbar-Green to release him “because he was tired of the confinement”.

However, the accused, Michael Jackson, 64, did not get his wish and was remanded in custody until April 15, when the case will again come up for mention.

“Your honour, I have been in the lock-up for so long. A beg you don't put me back there for is two Christmas me spend in there without a trial and me want go home now,” pleaded the feeble, untidily dressed senior citizen.

“A beg you don't put me back in there,” Jackson pleaded when the matter came up for mention the 14th time last week. Jackson is charged with unlawfully wounding his 40- year-old son, Andre, during a domestic dispute in 2007.

When the magistrate asked why the matter was still set down for mention after two years, the clerk of courts advised that the file was still incomplete because the medical certificate was not on the file.

The arresting officer explained that each time he went to the Kingston Public Hospital to collect the medical certificate his efforts were futile. “I have always been advised that the medical officer was either not present or he had not yet signed the certificate,” the policeman told the court.

The magistrate, who said hospital officials had the court waiting for two years for a medical certificate while the accused man spend time in police custody, issued a subpoena for the keeper of records at the KPH to attend court on April 15, to say why a medical certificate had not been issued for the wounded man who was brought there by the police in 2007.

The Jamaica Observer