Dispute over land on Cemetery Lane lands in court

A heated land dispute between the Young family and the Prime Minister’s law partner, Attorney Rodwell Williams, over a small plot on Cemetery Lane, has landed in the courts.  In late October, the two families became embroiled in a bitter argument when Williams consented to have a food shack placed on the parcel of land.  That clash ended with heavily armed members of the police department and the B.D.F. being called in to escort the chattel unto the property.  The Young family which claims ownership of the sixteen by eighteen feet parcel says that they have been occupying the lot for over a century.  Williams, on the other hand, became a titleholder to the same piece in question in 1999.  In court today, attorney Audrey Matura-Shepherd, who appeared on behalf of Sharette and Elaine Yearwood, relatives of the Young family, told the media that an ex parte injunction was filed by Williams following the incident.

Audrey Matura-Shepherd, Attorney for the Yearwood Family

Audrey Matura-Shepherd

“After the incident in October right, after the incident where the Belize police and the BDF came unto the land of the Young family and there was that huge major commotion out there, many people out there did not know that Mr. Rodwell Williams Jr. brought an injunction against four of our clients, and when I say our clients Mr. Sylvester represents two and I represent two and that’s Ms. Sharette Yearwood, Ms. Elaine Yearwood, Mr. Gary Yearwood and Mr. Keith Yearwood.  They brought an injunction against them saying that they cannot go on the property or interfere with the property or anything like that.  What I guess he did not realize is that they are not the people living there but they are part of the claimants in the sense that they claim under the will of their great great grandfather.  So that injunction was brought against them.  Sadly, my two clients Ms. Elaine Yearwood and Ms. Sharette Yearwood never got served that decision of the court.  It wasn’t until late last week that they got wind of it and quickly we acted on it.  What we did was we applied for an injunction to discharge, I mean an order to discharge that injunction, meaning that Mr. Rodwell Williams Senior and Junior cannot stop them from doing anything.  We made that application today.  The end result of that application is that the judge did grant us that application because the other party they applied to continue the injunction.  So there is no injunction over these four people, Mr. Sylvester joined his two clients into our application.  What transpired later was that first the judge wanted us to do it peacefully, just give an undertaking.  You won’t interfere and the other side won’t build anything but the side of Mr. Rodwell Williams, who did not show up in court, nor his father weren’t in court today.  Through their attorney Mr. Nigel Ebanks they said no, they do not want the court to ask them to give that undertaking.  So they refused to give that undertaking, so we did an oral application there and then asking the court would they consider injuncting him from continuing or trying to build anything.  Right now there’s nothing on the land, the chattel house was moved.  Of course the court said we were asking for a lot and they couldn’t grant it there and then but that’s not the end of the matter.  We have a lot of legal recourse that we will be following through because clearly this is a land dispute and even though now he is exhibiting that he has title, these people are disputing the way that title could have been obtained because they’ve been living on the land.  They weren’t even asked to give an affidavit to say that they agree that he gets it by prescription.”