Tip-off about Rasta on cliff
A telephone operator in the Police Control Room said she received a telephone call from an unknown man on June 17, informing her that he had spotted a “Rastaman” standing on a cliff at Coves Bay, St Lucy.
Grace Boyce-Codrington said the caller also stated that he had seen a boat at sea in the same area.
Boyce-Codrington was giving evidence at the Coroner’s Court during the inquest into the death of I’Akobi Maloney, who police testified jumped over a cliff at Land Lock, St Lucy, and died.
She said she received the call around 16:43 hours and immediately relayed the information to a Sergeant Browne, whom she overheard contacting the various agencies and stations, including Crab Hill and District “E”.
The telephone operator also told the court that three minutes after receiving the call the same man called back to thank her for the police’s quick response to the scene.
Under cross-examination by Coroner Faith Marshall-Harris, she said the call was electronically recorded but that she had also made notes about the times of both calls in a notebook. That notebook is to be produced to the court.
When witness Patrice Knight, an employee at the Arawak Cement Plant, was recalled to the witness stand she told the court that when she saw Maloney on June 17, walking to the bus-stop, he was walking normally and was not limping.
She said it was the first time that she had seen him upset and he told her that he was not sure what he was going to do now that he had resigned from his job at the plant.
“He was concerned that he would not be able to practise his engineering skills in Barbados and he told me that he did not believe that he would get another job in his field and because he was a Rasta he would not have access to an office job,” Knight told the court.
She said she assured Maloney that there were jobs available and even told him that there were Rastafarians in Barbados working in various fields.
But she added that Maloney proceeded to tell her that he had a back problem and stomach problems.
Tags: Arawak Cement Plant, back problem, calls, cliff, Coroner's Court, Crab Hill, District "E", Faith Marshall-Harris, Grace Boyce-Codrington, notebook, Patrice Knight, police control room, Sergeant Browne, stomach, telephone operator