Camille Clarke

Nan­cy John­son sat in her Diego Mar­tin apart­ment yes­ter­day and shed a soft tear for her dead son Ja­son.

It's been more than 11 years now, but the moth­er's pain nev­er goes away. In fact, the hurt was fur­ther awak­ened this week, not just be­cause of Moth­er's Day on Sun­day. In a dra­mat­ic move, fam­i­ly mem­bers, sym­pa­this­ers and friends took the mat­ter to the po­lit­i­cal cir­cuit. They plac­ard­ed a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) elec­tion cam­paign meet­ing in St Joseph, at which can­di­date Her­bert Vol­ney was a fea­tured speak­er. Vol­ney, as a High Court judge, had presided over the le­gal tri­al a decade ago, at which young Brad Boyce faced a manslaugh­ter charge. Boyce was even­tu­al­ly freed of the charge. In an in­ter­view at her Diego Mar­tin Main Road apart­ment, John­son said she would not like to see St Joseph con­stituents place a red fin­ger for Vol­ney.

"No, no, no. That is the judge who freed the per­son with re­spect to my son's death," she said. An emo­tion­al John­son said: "It was just like yes­ter­day to me. We are an­ti-Vol­ney. I am tired. It was elec­tion time when my son was alive. I vis­it­ed them and vot­ed UNC. I am seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for my son's death," she said in a raspy voice. Ja­son was a wait­er at a casi­no in Wood­brook, when he was struck on the head on Sep­tem­ber 1, 1998. The in­ci­dent oc­curred out­side the Edge night­club at Long Cir­cu­lar Mall. He died on Sep­tem­ber 16, at San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Boyce was said to have told John­son he and his friends were banned from en­ter­ing the club.

Boyce, 21, of Bel Air Gar­dens, La Ro­maine, was lat­er ac­quit­ted by Jus­tice Vol­ney at Port-of-Spain As­sizes for the un­law­ful killing of John­son. Boyce is now re­sid­ing abroad. Vol­ney was speak­ing Mon­day night at George Ear­le Park, St Joseph, when a num­ber of plac­ard bear­ers protest­ed close to the plat­form. Pro­test­ers in­clud­ed Stephen John­son, broth­er of slain Ja­son John­son. The urn with her son's ash­es was yes­ter­day placed on the din­ing room ta­ble. A plac­ard read: "Re­mem­ber Brad Boyce? Re­mem­ber the vic­tim Ja­son John­son–Vol­ney Must An­swer," stood tall against a wall on top a buf­fet. Nan­cy, small in stature and dressed all in black, yes­ter­day was the pic­ture of hurt, mere days be­fore Moth­er's Day. Her brown eyes were void of emo­tion as she took a drink of her rum and pear drink and took a pull on a cig­a­rette.

"I have to drink to sleep and take a smoke," John­son said. She said she will not join her son Stephen and protest against Vol­ney. "Brad Boyce mash up my fam­i­ly...We sep­a­rat­ed af­ter that," she said. "My chil­dren did not want to go to school, al­though they had pass­es. I am not a per­son to do harm to any­body. He didn't spend one night in jail. He was in the in­fir­mary for the en­tire time." Tears came to her eyes as she kissed a cross around her neck. She said in a low voice: "God can for­give. I can for­give him, but I can nev­er for­get." Stephen said he did not or­ches­trate the protest. "Two friends told me we were go­ing to protest my broth­er's death," he said. "All I know is I walked straight in­to a UNC meet­ing. I try to put my broth­er's death be­hind me but it is still there." He said he had his head bowed through­out the protest.