Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona joined hun­dreds of mourn­ers yes­ter­day in bid­ding far­well to his for­mer col­league, re­tired deputy Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Clyde Seep­er­sad, re­mem­ber­ing him as an ex­cel­lent at­tor­ney and mag­is­trate.Car­mona paid trib­ute to Seep­er­sad, who died on Sat­ur­day, dur­ing the fu­ner­al ser­vice at the Susamachar Pres­by­ter­ian Church, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day.

Seep­er­sad was the fa­ther of High Court judge Frank Seep­er­sad.Rem­i­nisc­ing on his ear­ly days as an at­tor­ney in the DPP's of­fice, Car­mona said Seep­er­sad was the one per­son to wel­come him with open arms."When I start­ed my pro­fes­sion­al life as a lawyer, the one per­son who wel­comed me with open arms was Clyde and he did not do it in any kind of pa­tro­n­is­ing man­ner.

"He did not do it in a way that made you feel un­com­fort­able. He was just be­ing the per­son that he was," Car­mona said.Seep­er­sad's el­dest son and name­sake, Clyde Seep­er­sad Jr, eu­lo­gised his fa­ther in a touch­ing piece that left many in tears.He told mourn­ers that his fa­ther's love for law led him to the love of his life, his moth­er Cham­pa.

He re­called the af­ter­noons spent with his sib­lings and fa­ther, do­ing home­work and study­ing at their Siparia home."As soon as Panora­ma (news) was fin­ished, he would take off the tele­vi­sion and sit with us, work­ing on his case files as we did our home­work.

"When Frank and I were writ­ing CAPE ex­ams, he would wake up ear­ly every morn­ing, so we could study with our minds fresh and then go out­side with us to ex­er­cise and poor An­drew and Car­ol were forced to go along with us."He al­so re­called many trips to the beach and fam­i­ly out­ings that his fa­ther or­ches­trat­ed.

"Every week­end we would go out as a fam­i­ly, to the beach, on road trips, you name it, dad­dy al­ways took the time for us to be to­geth­er as a fam­i­ly," he said.When he left the podi­um, Seep­er­sad was over­come with tears and had to com­fort­ed by his youngest broth­er, An­drew.Seep­er­sad was ho­n­oured in 2012 by the Law As­so­ci­a­tion for 50 years in prac­tice.

He was al­so a for­mer di­rec­tor at State-owned oil com­pa­ny Petrotrin and a mem­ber of Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Ap­peals Tri­bunal.