Former Registrar of the High Court Tamara Gibson-Marks was today granted EC$30,000 bail after she appeared before Magistrate Rechanne Browne-Matthias at the Kingstown Magistrate Court on three charges.
Gibson-Marks, who was asked to resign on May 21 during a 30-minute meeting with Attorney-General Judith Jones-Morgan, was charged with the theft of EC$21,925 between April 30 and May 21, 2014.
She is also charged that “on May 7th, 2014 in Kingstown St. Vincent and the Grenadines being a person employed in the public service who being authorized to give a certificate touching any matter by virtue whereof the rights of any person may be prejudicially affected did give a certificate which was to your knowledge false in a material particular to wit an order claim 96/1980”.
Gibson-Marks was also charged with “Being employed in the Public Service did in direct abuse of the authority of your office as Registrar of the High Court an arbitrary act prejudicial to the rights of another person to wit request that account number 800300 at St. Vincent Co-operative Bank be closed”.
Gibson-Marks pleaded not guilty to the charges and was granted bail with one surety. She is scheduled to re-appear at Kingstown Magistrate Court on Oct. 7, 2014.
Gibson-Marks, a St. Lucia born lawyer, who is married to former Unity Labour Party senator, lawyer Ronald “Ronnie” Marks, was represented on Thursday by St. Lucian lawyer Alberton Richelieu.
Gibson-Marks appeared in court less than 24-hours after her first known return to St. Vincent and the Grenadine after she left the country for St. Lucia 90 minutes after her resignation.
She arrived at the court building accompanied by two officers from the Criminal Investigation Department at 12:16 p.m., 65 minutes after a police officer had announced that the court had been adjourned until 9 a.m. Friday.
Journalists, acting on a tip off, had been waiting outside the court house from shortly around 10 a.m., since sources had said that the former registrar was expected to be brought to court sometime between 10:30 a.m. and 11 a.m.
Her husband arrived at the court sometime before Gibson-Marks.
After the hearing, Gibson Marks exited the court through a side door, and is believed to have left in a white, heavily tinted vehicle that left the court precinct immediately after.
Gibson-Marks is also slated to appear in court in early September to answer disciplinary proceeding instituted by the attorney general.
She is being asked to show cause why she should not be disbarred from practising law in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
No red-skinned, upper-class woman will ever be sent to prison for a white-collar crime in our racially-stratified, caste-based society.
Amazing how in this day and age the indoctrination of slavery is alive and well, that some one will use words such as “red-skinned” and ‘caste-based’. As though the important thing to seize upon is skin colour. If you are debating the issues, do so. What on earth does the colour of her skin have to do with anything?
Either you you were not born in SVG or left very young to dispute my assertions. Remember what the PM said about George Bush and Mr. Eustace meeting on a dark night. And why are all the beauty queens so red-skinned with European features.
Mr david, if what you said about your pm and his comments about george and mr eustache, then why would a population of 80% blacks let him get away with such an insult, and to make matters worst, you all gave him 3 terms. I don’t get it. If this was quebec, he was gone.
$21 925.00? You got to be kidding me? What happened to the thousands that were talked about previously?
I’ve been giving more thought to my implicit assertion below that when it comes to the police, law, courts, and other public spheres, Vincentians are differentially treated on the basis of race, colour, class, pedigree, and political affiliation.
If I am correct, I also contend that this differential treatment is one of the legacies of slavery that the quest for reparations is meant to redress.
But no amount of money from Great Britain can ever change our beliefs and values unless we are willing to accept and honour such change.
And since it the very same race, colour, class, and pedigree of politically-powerful people who are directly benefiting from the existing status quo of differential privilege and treatment, how can they be expected to use any reparations that might be forthcoming to benefit the very people — the mass of poor and working-class Black men, women, and children that make up 90 percent of our population — they have always marginalised, victimized, and exploited? Why would they deliberately endanger or renounce their jealously guarded privileges?
It seems that in SVG, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
IF memory serves me right, young SENATOR VYNETTE FREDERICK WAS ALLEGED TO HAVE COMMITTED SOME OFFENSE OR THE OTHER.
SENATOR FREDERICK WAS REPORTEDLY EMBARASSED IN FRONT OF HER ‘Dinner Guests’ WHEN ARMOURED POLICE FORCEFULLY TOOK HER INTO CUSTODY – – – TO CHARGE HER WITH THE SAID ALLEGED OFFENSES.
NOW, tell me, Vincie.
Was this LUCIAN MARRIED ULP VINCY cousin-in-law and apparent former favourite of the MARXIST-LENINIST PM similarly ACCOSTED BY THE green beast POLICE, ‘DRAGGED OFF TO THE CENTRAL POLICE STATION to be charged initially with the alleged offenses, as reported above,of, inter alia, “. . . . theft of $21,925 . . . ” ?
CAN the treatment of Sen. Frederick be comfortably compared with that meted out to Mrs. TAMARA MARKS [ aka Gibson-Marks] ?
Did we have a near-international incident IN THIS OTHER LAWYER with familial connections to the ULP and the ‘Big Man’ ‘imself ?
Man just want to know, but I wasn’t in Kingstown at this particular time.
Did the Regisrar, forced to resign earlier, really committed such offenses including “. . . direct abuse of the authority of [her office] . . . as Registrar of the High Court ? I personally hope not.
You see, I have eaten, drank, socialized and other hobnobbed with so many of the brethren at Wanstead, the UWI Cave Hill Campus locale, especially with the much-admired Law Faculty apparatniks, that it would indeed be a let down to see any young OECS, or WEST INDIAN eagle beagle solicitor and/or barrister come to such a fall from legal grace.
Can’t help digressing that I particularly remember with some modicum of nostalgia, my frequent attendance at boisterous lectures at the LAW LECTURE THEATRE, with especial mention of my POLITICAL SCIENCE LECTURES by MARXIST lecturer, Belle , and Dr. Michael Howards’s ECONOMICS lectures. There was that crucial time when a particular professor did his repeated best to try to get at least one of us to ADMIT if we knew for sure, or could definitely confirm if then PRIME MINISTER “Tom” Adams had actually died suddenly, or was somehow ill, or so. Poor me. My lips were sealed. I had given my solemn word NOT to say anything, or CONFIRM OR DENY any such inquiry. My confidence was absolute. Besides, the Grantley Adams family went back quite a ways with my own paternal branch of the family. I wasn’t about to divulge confidences pertaining to the status of such long-standing family friends. And, besides, my cousin was around that time serving as President of the Senate, and even super briefly as a change-over Governor General. My confidante was even closer than that, by far.
Let’s hope those guys betting at Sherlock Hall prove to be totally errant, and that Law Faculty nerds hold their own for integrity as taught in my undergraduate course in professional ethics and social responsibility.
Registrar GIBSON-MARKS, I sincerely give you the properly due benefit of the doubt. I say, let fairness, transparency, and the English Common Law prevail. Even an accused member of one of the most-hated professions in the Caribbean get her day in court, and face her accusers – — and charges.
I say: INNOCENT until proven GUILTY.
PROVEN. Not opportunistically thrown to the dogs, and may the devil get the hindmost. NOT falling on the sword of political expediency, and more widespread political corruption.
Well it is so obvious that she was offered full protection and vindication now they are still in government as this cannot be assured when the legal system is regularized after thegovernment changes.
“She arrived at the court building accompanied by two officers from the Criminal Investigation Department at 12:16 p.m., 65 minutes after a police officer had announced that the court had been adjourned until 9 a.m. Friday.”. You see the games of shielding and protecting that are being played here by agents of the state.
Who wrote this? This piece gave me a headache to read. The piece was padded with a lot of unnecessary details. The structure is horrendous and begs to be re written. The picture was the best part of this attempt at serious journalism.
<$22 grand?
Then they got some change for she.
At any rate, them earrings go cover that.
When de girl sense trouble she leave Vincy and come to St. Lucia to get the boss ” Alberton Richelieu”. Now she know she safe.
IS SHE TRYING TO DISGUISE HERSELF.. FROM SHORT HAIR CUT TO LONG HAIR NOW. BUT THE NAME STILL STAND
I won’t be surprised if all the charges are dismissed because of some technicality.
The irony is, Irma, you may well be an anonymous person posting on the net, just like me. So, to say she is hiding, is rich coming from you! No hat? No shawl, no sheet thrown over her head. No entourage blocking the shots from the camera. No newspaper hiding her face. The only disguise is the delight you seem to take from other people’s misery.
When people fail and fall, which is in their humanity those who stab and kick at them to keep them on the ground display another side of humanity that is equally reprehensible.
We have evolved and moved away from the barbarism that marked ages gone by. We no longer tie a woman to pole in public and stone her to death for the wrong she has done. No, we are far too civilized for that!
We post her picture on the internet and bombard her with a barrage of negativity and bridled hate. Oh how far we have come! We use an electronic stone instead and feel righteous as we hit the ‘enter/return’ button on our computers and tablets.
The article says she is charged with theft of $21, 925. But it seems like the police left out one charge- Robbery!. It seems that she must have robbed a lot of people of their COMPASSION!!!!
Such robbery would not have required a bag. The collective compassion can probably fit in a thimble with room to spare.