Jamaica
News - Real Estate - Services (July
26,
2004)
Mammee Bay squatters evicted
SCORES OF informal settlers were
evicted from a disputed 40-acre prime beach front property in
Mammee Bay, St. Ann on Friday, ending years of legal wrangling
over the occupation of the property.
The eviction exercise was
peacefully carried out under the watchful eyes of police and
security personnel. This follows the intervention of Deputy
Superintendent of Police Anthony Castelle who held meeting with
the residents the previous day and got them to comply with the
eviction order.
However, with the clearing of the
residents from the property a serious social problem has been
created with several women and their children now left homeless
and having to be sleeping without a shelter.
AN ACT OF WICKEDNESS
Leader of the Mammee Bay Squatters Settlement, Roy Daniel,
described the eviction of the residents and the bulldozing of
their farms and other belongings as a act of wickedness.
On Friday morning, it was actually
the residents who began to pull down the building on the arrival
of the eviction team and a part from one woman who reported that
the bulldozer ran over the board from her dismantle house, they
were all allowed to remove most of their belongings and whatever
pieces of board and other items they could salvage before the
bulldozer moved in.
Friday's eviction of the over 40
families followed a supreme court ruling on Tuesday which gave
Mammee Bay Resort Limited the right to reclaim the remaining
five-acre portion of the disputed property that was being
occupied.
After serving notices on the
occupants, the owner tried to reclaim the property by force on May
11, but this was stalled by a court action. One of the squatters,
Owen Crosbie, filed an injunction in the Supreme Court against the
action.
POSSESSION
Crosbie had also sought adverse possession of the five acres of
the property on which he and the other families are living,
claiming that it had been occupied by his grandfather since 1960.
But this case was thrown out in the Supreme Court on Tuesday
paving the way for Friday's eviction.
From Thursday when word of the plan
eviction exercise began to circulate throughout the community,
some of the residents began pulling down wooden structures that
were either their houses or shops, while others refuse to budge
holding out some hope of remaining on the property.
Unfortunately on Thursday
overnight rain caused much discomfort for those who had been
sleeping in the open and children who got soaked had to be rescued
in the homes of neighbours. Among those who got soaked in Thursday
night rain was Owen Crosbie's common-law wife and a
six-month-child.
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