The decision was unanimous, 12-0. When the verdict was read family members of the deceased were elated. Some burst into tears, struggling to maintain their composure as the judge continued the proceedings.
Emotional
Outside the courtroom, Jamal Robins’ parents, who had been emotional throughout the trial, expressed their relief that it was over and praised the prosecution for its work. Jamal’s parents said they were happy with the verdict and that when their son’s remains are turned over to them, they will take them back to Freeport for a proper burial.
“I am very happy with the verdict, justice has been served and now my son can rest. I can now give him a proper Christian burial and have my mind at ease, ” Edward Robins, Jamal’s father said yesterday. “That’s my only son, he and I were very close until somehow he drifted off and I lost control of him,” he said. Mr Robins called for Farrington to face the gallows.
“I want to see him hang because he showed no mercy, ” he said.
An emotional Christine Scott accused Farrington of intentionally “playing crazy.” Mrs Scott said that she would probably be attending the trial or trials into the deaths of the four Grand Bahama boys Farrington is also accused of murdering.
“It’s because through me that they found those boys,” she said. “I was searching, I contacted him (Cordell) and he came and said that he was going to help me find my child because I know he was the last person I saw with my Jamal.
So he was the one that I was supposed to look for to find ļ¾ Jamal,” she said.
Prosecutors will not say if they plan to have Farrington face separate trials into the murders of each of the four Grand Bahama boys. Deputy director of public prosecutions Cheryl Grant-Bethel said that within the next three months the prosecution plans to start those proceedings. A sentencing hearing for Farrington’s conviction for the murder of Robins has been scheduled for September 11 at 2.30 pm.
Following the verdict, Farrington had been asked if he had anything to say. He told the court, “I turned myself in to police because I knew I committed a crime,” (the rest was incoherent). Farrington was whisked away from Bank Lane in an unmarked police vehicle after he was escorted out of court yesterday.
Throughout the month-long trial, jurors heard testimony from thirty-two witnesses, including those who knew the accused, police investigators, forensic experts, psychiatrists as well as the accused himself, who earlier this week gave an unsworn statement from the prisoner’s dock. Farrington was charged in Grand Bahama in October 2003 with Robins’ murder. He was also charged with the murders of four Grand Bahama boys.
The case went to the jury around 12.30pm yesterday. It was after 3.30pm when they returned to the courtroom with a guilty verdict.
Jury
In her summation of the case, Justice Anita Allen reminded the jurors of the oath that they had taken when they were impanelled, which was to return a true verdict: based on the facts. She told the jury that they were the judges of the facts and could choose to accept or refuse any evidence or testimony that had been presented to them.
In Farrington’s defence, Ms Farquharson had argued that the accused man suffered from an “abnormality of mind” at the time he murdered Robins. She leaned heavily on the testimony of psychiatrist Dr Michael Neville. She had pointed to the accused’s claims of a tumultuous childhood consisting of physical and sexual abuse as a means to justify his later personality disorders and perversions, specifically his attraction to young boys.
From the beginning, Ms Farquharson tried to have the trial into the murders of Robins and the four Grand Bahama boys joined as one.
It was her argument that these murders were all a part of a series of events that attested to the accused man’s psychosis. Justice Anita Allen, however, ruled that Farrington had to stand separate trials. Ms Farquharson then took her argument to the Court of Appeal but was unsuccessful having Justice Allen’s ruling overturned.
The prosecution has maintained that Farrington was not crazy and knew right from wrong when he murdered 22year-old Robins.
It’s case was that he had murdered Robins in cold blood.
By NATARIO McKENZIE, The Tribune
