Gov’t challenges $120m award to George Williams, calls it excessive

Jamaica Gleaner | 2025-12-07 | Original Article

The Government is arguing that the $120 million in damages that was awarded to George Williams – the mentally disabled Rastafarian man who spent 50 years in prison awaiting trial – was “punitive in circumstances where there was no oppressive, arbitrary, or high-handed action” by the State.

 

The claim was made by Kamau Ruddock, an attorney in the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC), as part of the Government’s appeal of the multimillion-dollar judgment in the Court of Appeal.

 

The AGC serves as the Government’s chief legal adviser, and the Court of Appeal is Jamaica’s second-highest court.

 

In June, Justice Sonya Wint Blair awarded Williams, 79, a total of $78.6 million in compensatory damages and $42 million in vindicatory damages. The lawsuit was brought on his behalf by his niece, Pamella Green.

 

Prior to that, the Government had offered Williams $6 million as compensation for his ordeal.

 

Ruddock’s affidavit outlines 10 grounds for the appeal, eight of which argue that Justice Wint Blair made missteps in determining what has been described as an “unprecedented” award.

 

“The learned judge erred in awarding sums which were, in fact, punitive in circumstances where there was no oppressive, arbitrary, or high-handed action on the part of the Crown servants,” according to ground five of the affidavit seen by The Sunday Gleaner.

 

“The learned judge erred by going beyond what was reasonable and awarded to the respondent a windfall, which is not the purpose of compensatory or vindicatory damages,” it claimed in ground eight.

 

As of Friday, it remained unclear whether Green would also seek to challenge the ruling in hopes of securing a larger award.

 

Her attorney, John Clarke, said he could not comment “at this time” when asked about a potential appeal.

 

He noted that he would first await the outcome of the Government’s application for Justice Wint Blair to appoint a trustee for the funds before taking “instructions from my client on their intended direction”.

 

Although Green has previously said the $120 million award was insufficient, she told The Sunday Gleaner in June that “we will satisfy with it and make it work and continue to take care of him”.

 

Williams was taken into custody on July 21, 1970, after a knife attack on a family driving through Mount Diablo in St Catherine, according to authorities. He was charged with murder in December 1970 for the fatal stabbing of Ian Laurie.

 

By February 1971, it was confirmed that Williams suffered from schizophrenia, and he was declared unfit to plead the following month.

 

According to the lawsuit filed by Green, Williams was held in filthy and inhumane conditions at a high-security prison until his release in 2020.

 

Justice Wint Blair found that multiple state agencies had violated Williams’ constitutional rights, including his right to due process and to a timely hearing before an independent and impartial court.

 

“The conditions of his imprisonment were so bad that each day, he prayed that he would be released from hell,” she wrote in her 80-page decision.

 

“He was dismissed by warders as a madman and called a mad case by the warders. He would be routinely beaten and abused, and when he complained, the officials would dismiss it as the words of a madman,” she added.

 

Explaining the compensatory damages, Justice Wint Blair said that adjusting Williams’ losses year by year between 1978 and 2025 using the consumer price index over the 47-year period yielded a starting figure of $66 million. She added another $10 million due to “aggravated features”, including that Williams was “held in the same building, under the same rules, conditions and arrangements as a convicted prisoner”.

 

She also pointed to the absence of medical records before 2008 as an aggravated factor: “There was no evidence as to the reason for their absence.”

 

The judge explained that compensatory damages were necessary because a basic award alone would not sufficiently redress the harm Williams suffered.

 

For vindicatory damages, she granted $1 million for each year of lost liberty over 42 years “to express how valuable the liberty rights are”. She also awarded $2.6 million for breach of due process rights.

 

The AGC’s Ruddock, however, contends that the compensatory award was “inordinately excessive”, stating, “No judge, properly applying their mind to the evidence and the relevant law could reasonably have made such an award.”

 

He made a similar claim regarding the vindicatory damages.

 

He further argued that Justice Wint Blair adopted “what amounts to a new manner of assessment, which is (i) arbitrary in nature; and (ii) a conflation and/or a duplication of compensatory and vindicatory damages”.

 

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com

 

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