‘Lifer’ sent to UK under 19th century law
Justin Ramoon (far left) and Osbourne Douglas escorted by prison officers as the court visits the scene of Jason Powery’s murder
(CNS): A man serving a 34-year life term for the murder of Jason Powery in a gang-related shooting outside a George Town bar in 2015 has been transfered from HMP Northward to an undisclosed prison in the UK. Osbourne Douglas (30), who was convicted in May last year alongside his younger brother Justin Ramoon (25), was removed under the Colonial Prisoners Removal Act, 1884, officials said on Thursday evening.
No details were given in a short statement from government about Douglas’ removal but CNS was able to confirm with his family that they had not been informed about the move.
Under the nineteenth century legislation there are a number of reasons why a prisoner would be transferred between the British Overseas Territories or to the UK, including for their own safety or that of others.
The statement issued yesterday night from government said:
“This evening, 22 June 2017, a prisoner was transported to the United Kingdom under the Colonial Prisoners Removal Act, 1884. The prisoner will be housed by Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service until further notice. This removal was authorised by the UK and Cayman Islands Governments in the interests of national security and the public safety of the people of the Cayman Islands.”
Police have always alleged that Douglas was a leading gang member who was considered particularly dangerous. He has been in HMP Northward since his arrest more than two years ago, serving time alongside other rival gang members and suspected leaders. It is not clear what triggered his removal this week, how long the transfer process was in the works between the British and Cayman authorities, or whether Douglas has gone voluntarily.
Douglas was convicted of murder with his brother in a joint enterprise following a judge alone trial. But in the crown’s case, Douglas did not pull the trigger. During the trial, based on eye-witness evidence, the prosecutors said Douglas had given the gun to his brother, who shot Powery in what was described as an execution-style killing, and then had acted as the getaway driver.
I have always been truly amazed at the amount of responses that are posted every time there is a story on NWP – throw the key away, send them to Cuba and Honduras, etc. etc. But when Youth Anti-Crime Trust, a Youth Crime Prevention non – profit association, appeals to the public and the Government for funding to address and reduce crime, the story dies within 24 hours. Caymanians, we are forgetting the most important thing about crime – the Victim. There is no Prison – anywhere in the world that will bring the Victim back or erase the trauma of being burglarized, etc. The Crime has already been committed. Why are we not equally impassioned about reducing crime as we are about the punishment? I don’t understand. Sending a convicted person off Island does not address the root cause of crime and therefore crime will continue, particularly amongst our disenfranchised young people. Studies have shown that harsher penalties have little or no deterrent to crime – so who cares about how one lives in prison? The crime has already been committed. I ask you to support Youth ACT’s Youth crime Prevention Programmes and demand that you and the person you voted for champions this cause. We are currently trying to raise $100,000 to implement a Programme called Stop Now and Plan (SNAP) that will provide intervention services to hundreds of children and families – and we CANT get sufficient funding, so prove that you really care about crime by making a donation to this Programme. Sending someone off to the U.K. will not bring the victim back. The crime has already been committed. In fact, the best thing that could happen to this Prisoner is to go to the U.K. as he will have some human rights while in Prison ( yep – whether you like it or not) and will receive rehabilitation – neither of which happens here. In closing, I await your donations, your fundraising activities, a call from your MLA, your Church, your business, the Company you work for, etc. Show that you really care about reducing and preventing crime, as the U.K. Or Cuba is NOT the solution. Prison happens AFTER the crime has been committed. Google Cayman Compass, Cayman Reporter and CNS and read about Youth ACT.
All Caymanians, not only those who may be sent from prison, but all of us will soon have to take you residency there if we are to survive as our Government cares zero about us. In the last ten years or so, I wonder if they know the number of us that have left our beloved Island for gray, rainy England? Our forefathers must be turning in their graves.
Mmmm, 11.25 could be onto something, but I’d suggest Australia rather than the Brac, which would be too close for comfort if there was an escape of some kind. Also, Australia was once used as a dumping ground for criminals from the U.K., so the authorities there are well practiced in handling the likes of the scoundrel in question. Just a suggestion.
more British criminals were sent to the American colonies than Australia, so send him there
Yes, i think that is clearly evident in their representation in Congress and the Senate!
Yes sending him away is good to be used as an example.
Why are we not demanding that HMP become a tougher prison, scale down on cost and stop serving high end delicacies? This way when the criminals that repeat crimes would remember that they are not going to a hotel but a real penitentiary? We keep calling in talk shows for years about this and nothing gets done. HMP is a welcomed place to land for 99.9% of criminals. No one is afraid or deterred by the thought of being sentenced there.
WE DONT WANT HIM!!!!! Why should we pay for him??
Not impressed.
This development feels completely foreign to this 80’s baby as he has never witnessed anything like it before.
We have survived Category 5 hurricanes, natural disasters, major destruction, and pulled through while rejecting any “assistance” from the UK military etc.
In fact, we have even donated funds to assist our “mother country” in her war efforts.
Why are we sacrificing that leverage at this time for a wholly avoidable situation?
Who signed off on this? The governor? The premier? (Wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter.)
Anyone who understands the UK knows this sole gesture will be spun in the future as the saving grace of the entire Cayman Islands.
Our mother is not altruistic in any sense whatsoever. Everything she does is for self.
As mentioned more than once in the past, we should utilise our multi-island status to address the genuine risk of prisoner directed crime.
A modern purpose-built facility on one of the sister islands would best address the situation at hand, and would satisfy any human rights concerns of the prison population as all would be contained to the Cayman Islands.
At this point we can only hope this will be the case in the future and this prisoner will be eventually returned to for us to sort out ourselves.
– Who
* Enjoy the telly, sony playstation, and takeaways over in the UK prison system.
Hardly a tougher environment over there.
Yes to a new prison on the Bluff just think of the boost to the economy with visiting family on Cayman AIrways food supplies etc
You been in the system?
finally the Brits Looked after us. as long as they don’t expect stuff in return.
Sheldon Brown is Caymanian therefore we have to keep him. His grandfather is the famous Mr. Goring that Goring Avenue was named off.
What about the businesses that wants and expect Caymanians to work 24/7 and late hours or their jobs are threatened by cheap labor? My company wants me to work weekends and late at nights and I’m unable to spend time with my family. No help from the powers to be. HR is hopeless so next action will be the labor board.
Public Enemy #1…He was removed from these islands because he is labeled as the the most dangerous criminal in the Cayman Islands
Send a few more of those lowlife losers out of here……preferably on a ONE WAY ticket!!
We don’t want them in the UK either!! Put them on Death Row in the US. We have more than enough
Murderers that the tax payer is keeping here as it is.
OH stop making stupid statements.
What about the people raping and molesting kids and females.
Guess theyre not being treated as national security threat.
Good to see that fine colonial legislation still works so well.
Whodatis must be asleep. “Fine colonial. legislation” and gets 22 thumbs up and no downs. Lol.
Blimey, was about to add, “Make that 23, mate” but as I exercised my CNS constitutional right to vote it jumped to 60, with still no thumbs down. Praise the Lord, sanity still prevails!
Oh Christ, Pit Bull, I thought you had left us. For once, I agree with you. But, erm, 1884, is that the best we can do?
You may worship the pearls of wisdom I proffer, but there really is no need to compare me to Jesus. But thanks for the compliment.
LOL, it’s not going to be any easy ride for him. I’ve had some experience of visiting prisons in the UK and lived with a partner who worked in a maximum security facility. He may be a top dog in Northward but they’ll eat him alive if he tries anything over there. My advice to him – get a copy of the Koran and start to learn it by heart because that’s the only thing that’ll save your ass.
What a waste of money, it costs 100,000 dollars a year to send him there, should have just sent him to Jamaica or Cuba and offered 25k pa.
Plus he’s closer to his family LMAO!
You got your numbers wrong. It cost CI$42,000 a year per prisoner there compared to CI$70,000 Here. That’s a $28,000 savings. I figure we send about 100 of them there and use that 2.8 million dollar savings to push into childhood development to keep our future generation from going down the same road.
You want to save the future?
Legalize abortion in Cayman for starters.
Children having children…..bad, bad, bad.
People having kids who can’t afford to….both a strain on Government and society.
Before we go down the abortion road I would rather we sterilize the deadbeat fathers and mothers who keep breeding with no means to support a family!
hear! hear!
Sterilize, castrate those who are producing unwanted children who are now the criminals of today and the future.
Reduce the dependency on givernment providing for them and their products.
Or how about parents actually doing their jobs and teaching their children of consequences of such actions.
The first sensible response among all the right-wing extremist bullshit.
We are trying to be a civilised nation – let’s try and have civilised solutions to our problems, instead of lowering ourselves to the levels of those we are judging.
to anonymous 12:51pm …who is going to teach the parents? How can a child raise a child? Not all persons who have children are capable of taking care of them. Most of the menaces to our society “raise themselves” and it is a sad situation when society chooses to ignore the youth – It takes a village…….
FREE CONDOMS
Don’t penalize children for the mistakes of their parents.
You are not God.
Says who?
He knows he did wrong by giving his brother the gun and now still want to call the shots in Northward. Well tell him to call the shots in the UK. His family did know he was going? Well he belongs to the STATE once in Jail not for his mother. Did they sit and think how that poor mother of the one he helped killed feels every day as she will never see her son again? He should be there for the rest of his life and so should his brother. I trust that by the time he get out he will stop his killings and this might teach some of them we are not joking. Who ever dicided to use that Law to evict him from the Island congrats in a job well done. He just needs to remain there until he is 60 and if he is still not reformed them let him remain the rest of his sentence over there. Cayman prison is a joke to them and now he will see the big bosses over there. Only the for will make it. Tell him to run his mother over there and he might last 34 days instead of years. So sit back and enjoy the ride of a lifetime. More to go too if this don’t stop.
I like your reasoning, friend. Very sound.
We would CIG tell the family. Did he give the family of his victim advance notice.
To do so would probably mean that there would be some violence from some of his “lieutenants” as they tried to extract him and put him safely on a plane. Think for once. And since his brother is also murderer, I think we know what kind of family we’re dealing with.
And don’t forget their older brother (Matteo Ramoon-
Dinnall) who was sentenced to almost 2 decades for attempted murder.
FYI
Matio was not sentenced for attempted murder. Get your assumptions straight!!
https://www.caymancompass.com/2005/12/05/15-years-for-firearm-offences/
Yeah so pretty much he tried to shoot someone, but instead shot up their house and since no one actually got shot they sentenced him to the lesser charge for the gun and ammo instead. Judge even said he was lucky to not be charged with that. So yeah, sounds pretty closed to an attempted murder to me..
Hate to break it to ya.
I have a better idea that would cost the Cayman Islands tax payers a whole lot less money to house a dangerous criminal like him.
Sign a contact with the Honduras Government who would love to earn some of our foreign currency, by accommodating a prisoner(s) of his caliber. Send him to “El Pozo” aka “The Well”- which is located in Santa Barbara on the northern coast of Honduras close to Guatemala.
If you send him there for about 5 -10 years and he does come back, he will return like a “tamed pussy cat” or be like “Mary’s gentle baby lamb” whose fleece was white as snow !!
10:29am that would solve all of our criminal problems.
Or come back with ties to South American gangs.
Firstly, he is not a Latino so he could not obtain rank or respect to be of any influence in El Pozo.
His daily tasks would be to wash and dry the underwear and clothes of MS 13 & MS 19. Clean up their cells, run errands between cells like a good little servant.
Any insobordination would result in the severing of digits – limbs or be strung upside down for hours on end.
4:11 you sound as if you were a past resident, maybe someone needs to check you out.
Wow! That’s the way to do it! Someone should get employee of the month for this.
Why not, they get employee of the month for turning up and doing their job!
Come on CNS why mention the legislation. This is the best news we have heard in a long time. This transfer sends all the right signals to criminals.
Because not all people that comment have knowledge, like random jurors.
Maybe they should send all non-Cayman Nationals home!
Osborne Douglas was no more dangerous than Sheldon Brown. Why didnt they send him?
Exactly
He was married and the Govt would have had to fund his wife’s visits to the UK or else her human rights would have been violated. I know its a dumb reason but thats the reason none the less.
Who gives a rats a$$ who Sheldon was married to. Majority of the criminals sitting in Northward now were influenced by him. No need to conduct a censes. A threat to Public safety was him brainwashing Damian Seymour and having him kill multiple people to fulfil his dirty deeds. Deeds that he didnt have the courage to do himself.
But they never sent him because that mouth piece wouldnt survive!
I pray that all who have rejoiced about this have perfect children! Cause I assure you that no mother raises her child with the intent of him or her committing such acts.
And Sheldon Brown still running the show from behind bars sorry but its the truth, BTH group have ties to him very well organized and the authorities have a blind eye to it all..
Exactly! BTH and Central (or CMK) been connected for decades!!!
Connected?
Thought they were at war now.
More violent criminals serving time in Northward should be also sent to a real prison in the U.K. This may also act as somewhat of a deterrent to those living the gang & violence life on our shores & prevent them manipulating the street puppets, from jail. Finally, they will get a real taste of the criminal justice system. Also while they are booking seats on flights, what about financial crime convicts too ? They have ultimately also engaged in crime against the U.K. even if in absence from it.
Why is the date of the statue in question relevant?
A real prison environment! perhaps CIG should utilize this procedure for all our criminals who are doing life or long sentences, especially for violent crimes. Teach them a good lesson while they learn a British accent. Blimey!
There is no such thing as a British accent.
Dreamworld.
Oh Blarney!!!
Maybe we should send all violent criminals to an off-site prison and pay them a holding fee.
Keep the money in Cayman. Make Cayman Brac a prison colony.
Idiot
Thats a good idea. We spend more money per person in Cayman Brac than we spend on prisoners in Northward
Oops I thought it already was. Ignorance is bliss!
GReat idea an economic boon
You commit the crime in Grand Cayman. Stay there!!??