KINGSTOWN – Former model Yugge Farrell was granted EC $1000 bail when she appeared in the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court this morning.
The 23 year old is charged with using abusive language to the wife of Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves, on January 4. The matter has been adjourned to December 17, 2018.
In other new developments, Barbadian Queen’s Counsel Andrew Pilgrim is now leading the defence in the case.
Farrell had previously been hospitalised at a mental institution while a magistrate decided on the arguments presented in court regarding the acceptance of a report from the psychiatric hospital.
The appearance of Pilgrim follows a recent statement by Grant Connell, the attorney who has been representing Yugge Farrell since her arraignment on January 5 that “I have been contacted by several senior attorneys throughout the Caribbean, who have expressed their willingness to render their legal services, pro bono”.
Earlier, attorney Kay Bacchus-Baptiste said she has been retained to see after the “human rights and mental health issues” of the former model, after she had been asked by her relatives to see after her interest.
Farrell, who has been at the Mental Health Centre for the past three weeks, has been charged with using abusive language to the wife of Finance Minister Camillo Gonsalves, on January 4.
When she appeared before Magistrate Bertie Pompey on January 5 Farrell was ordered to undergo two weeks of psychiatric evaluation at the Mental Health Centre. The prosecution made the application for psychiatric evaluation after Farrell pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Pompey’s decision to grant the prosecution’s request in the absence of any supporting argument has led to widespread debate about the functioning of the judiciary in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Since her hospitalisation, Farrell has made a number of allegations, including that she had been in a relationship with the 44-year-old minister that ended in 2016.
The finance minister has remained mum about the allegation and Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves has said that he has advised the minister, who is also his son, to delay comment and maintain a “dignified silence”.
Bacchus-Baptiste told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that she has “sent certain submissions to the magistrate because I think that Grant submissions were — well, I think they could have been augmented, which is what I said to him.
So I sent certain further submissions on the facts of the medical report that was given,” Bacchus Baptiste said, adding that she has been in discussion with Connell, who has acted without pay on Farrell’s behalf since her January 5 arraignment at the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court.
“Grant said he was going to withdraw but the way things are, I cannot confirm that. He told me he was going to withdraw because I told him the family had engaged me. But [due to] subsequent actions from him, I cannot accept that he has withdrawn.
“What I know is that I am acting on behalf of the sister and the mother to look after her human rights and mental health issues. Until I see what he does on Monday, then I’d be able to say that,” Bacchus-Baptiste said.
Last week, Connell made a public call for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) discontinue the charge against his client.
Meanwhile, Star Radio, which is owned by the ruling Unity Labour Party, has apologised to its listeners for an expletive-laced in-studio conversation inadvertently broadcast on the matter involving the former model.
“The conversation, in its content and actual words, does not meet the high standards set by Star Radio. Accordingly, the Management of Star Radio considers the broadcast conversation to be wrong and unacceptable. It is not sufficient simply to dismiss it as loose talk by unsuspecting persons,” the management of the radio station said in a statement on Sunday.
“We do not condone it and hereby offer our sincerest apologies to our listeners who were thereby affected. We will continue to maintain our high standards and trust that the offending persons have learnt from their mistakes,” it added.
The conversation was broadcast last Wednesday for more than 30 minutes during the time allotted to the station’s Street Beat programme. (CMC)
