– Court throws out farmer’s application for injunction

TOWN Clerk Royston King reported on Monday that the application for injunction against the City Council by the Princes Street pig farmer has been denied.
Mayor Patricia Chase-Green subsequently noted that the Council has exercised enough patience, and has allowed the pig farmer, Jean Bacchus more than five months to remove her pigs.

Bacchus, in applying for an injunction, wanted to prevent the M&CC officers from entering that portion of the cemetery and moving her pigs.

With the application thrown out, Chase-Green said the Council now has to apply the laws in getting the pigs removed.

Providing all of the legal matters are out of the court, she said the administration will move forward with taking action.

Bacchus, of 76 Princes Street, Lodge, has been illegally rearing pigs for sale in a section of the cemetery for some years now. Councillors had heard how the woman had been rearing the pigs there for as many as 15 years now, and has also begun slaughtering them there for sale, allegedly at the Bourda Market.

Chase-Green told city councillors at a previous meeting that the M&CC sought to show the resident a humane face in not seizing her pigs, but allowing her time to remove from the area.

“Councillors were giving support to her and asking to give her more time; more time to file an injunction,” the Mayor said.
The City Council, she noted, was now in expense to find money to pay a lawyer when the case comes up in court.

Town Clerk Royston King had painted a rather graphic picture of what is happening in Le Repentir Cemetery at the moment, calling to mind the many reports that circulate about broken tombs.

“Can you imagine a pig pulling at a human bone?” he asked, as he called for immediate attention to be paid to this issue.
Councillor Heston Bostwick suggested that the farmer be removed immediately, as opposed to Councillor Oscar Clarke’s plea for leniency to be extended. Clarke argued that it is the farmer’s livelihood, and that she should first be spoken to. But the mayor reminded him that she was already asked to remove.

Clarke said it would be heartless to simply throw the farmer out, and referred to the fact that she had been allowed for a long time without anyone objecting. He also suggested that the City Council help the farmer find an alternative location.
The mayor had directed the town clerk to send a written notice to the farmer to remove after no more than 14 days, after which the administration said it was going to take any action permitted by the law.
It is within that ‘leniency’ period that the woman applied for an injunction.