The household of a “beneficiant and loving” British man who was murdered in Jamaica are demanding solutions over the British authorities’s “detached” response after the tragedy.
Delroy Walker, from Birmingham, was stabbed to death weeks after retiring to the Caribbean island the place he was constructing his dream residence. The 63-year-old charity employee was murdered by a “jealous” tradesman he employed to assist enhance the property in preparation for a household go to in summer time 2018.
Dwayne Barton, 32, was jailed for 27 years and his confederate, Davian Edwards, 33, for 22 years this week after being discovered responsible of homicide in a trial at St Mary circuit court docket in Jamaica.
Walker, who was born on the island, was 11 years previous when he moved to Britain together with his dad and mom who have been a part of the Windrush technology. He labored as a carpenter, builder and a faculty caretaker however had at all times dreamed of returning to Jamaica to retire, which he did in November 2017.
Steve Walker, 59, stated his brother had discovered a good looking seafront home and employed native tradespeople to assist him restore it in preparation for his household visiting from Britain. He had been eager to make use of individuals close by as a result of he had been “very a lot about supporting the local people”.
Nonetheless, the trial heard that the retiree had turn out to be concerned in a minor dispute with one of many males, Barton, who returned to the property and stabbed him to dying as “payback” in April 2018.
Delroy Walker’s homicide got here weeks earlier than the deadly stabbing of the British retirees Gayle and Charlie Anderson, 71 and 74, from Manchester, and sparked warnings that these coming back from Britain have been being deliberately targeted. Jamaican police bolstered security in response.
After the sentencing on Tuesday, Steve Walker, a former BBC technician from Croydon in south London, stated he hoped the prolonged jail sentences would present that “Jamaica will tolerate this not”.
He stated his brother had been a beneficiant and loving man who had been so excited to welcome his household on a visit from Britain that was weeks away when he was murdered.
He stated: “We’ve had justice, which is what we’ve been striving for because the day his life was taken in that merciless manner … [but] it’s left an vacancy. I like Jamaica however my brother liked Jamaica. He must be right here. I must be sharing these moments and sharing paradise with him.”
Walker’s household stated they’d request a gathering with the British International Workplace over what they described because the “detached” manner his homicide had been handled by the excessive fee in Kingston.
Steve Walker stated a UK official had instructed him initially that the federal government couldn’t assist them as a result of “your brother’s not British, or not British sufficient, as a result of he had a twin passport”.
“It was stunning to the core and it nonetheless shocks me,” he stated. “I felt disgust and upset. It was time after we wanted that assist.”
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Prison prosecutions in Jamaica are notoriously gradual and it took seven years to deliver the killers to trial, regardless of them being arrested weeks after the homicide. Walker’s household had requested the British authorities’s assist to expedite the method however obtained “little or no, very late and sometimes nothing in any respect”, stated his sister Jackie Ward.
Ward, from Surrey, stated she believed the excessive fee handled the household as not British as a result of her brother had had a twin Jamaica-British passport, though he had spent most of his life within the UK and his household nonetheless dwell there.
She stated: “If it had been an individual from Oxford or Surrey, a white British household, who had been killed, I extremely suspect their response and assist would have been completely different.
“They have been detached about it. It’s removed from adequate. It’s a systemic downside.”
Ward stated no British authorities official had contacted them because the trial and had not attended the court docket hearings as promised, she stated, regardless of the homicide warranting interventions from Jamaica’s director of public prosecutions and receiving nationwide media protection in each nations.
The International Workplace stated: “We’ve got supported the household since Mr Walker’s dying and stay obtainable for consular help.”
