Margaret Pratt's Justice Diary - September 2017

My name is Margaret Pratt. My husband Roger Pratt was murdered in St Lucia in January 2014.

justiceforroger.com has an objective of trying to speed up the process in the case of Roger’s murder and also, increasingly, to raise awareness and support other people on St Lucia who are suffering the same.

Since we last spoke in July I hosted a roundtable featuring myself and two other ladies, one of whom had been raped and the other whose mother was murdered in her garden in St Lucia.

Anne, Georgina and I didn't take the decision to tell our stories lightly.

All of us have a very warm affection for the people of St Lucia. Our story is about criminal justice systems and judicial processes on the island, which affect the people of St Lucia on a day-to-day basis even more.

There's poor communications, there's weak progress, it takes years to get resolutions in cases and there's an insufficiently supportive and caring attitude to victims and making sure that their cases are seen through the courts.

We released that video in mid-August and it's gone viral.

120,000 plus people have watched the video, it has been shared more than 1,000 times and we've had hundreds and hundreds of responses and comments to the video, the overwhelming majority of which have been incredibly supportive.

I'd like to thank all the people who have taken the trouble to respond.

This has struck a chord with victims and their loved ones in St Lucia across the board. The St Lucia people deserve better and I am so pleased that our video has stimulated the sort of debate that it's achieved on St Lucia, raising awareness of the inadequacies of their judicial system.

The other thing that I've been really pleased about is the statement from the Head of the St Lucia Hotel and Tourism Association that says that crime is a real issue and calling upon the Government to sort out those problems.

The political response has been really interesting. One of the ministers - Hermangild Francis - has suggested that there hasn't really been a problem and that - in my case specifically - people have been in “constant contact”.

I'm affronted by the word ‘constant’.

I last had a conversation with the Director of Public Prosecutions on 26th April. He promised me something 16th May and I haven't heard anything since, other than that he was unwell on 1st June.

The Minister has probably not been as well briefed by his officials as he might like.

In the next month, I do hope but I will have the opportunity to speak with the DPP, Daarsrean Greene, and maybe the High Commissioner and other representatives of the Government so that I can understand better the timetable, what sense of realism that timetable has and when I can go to St Lucia with certainty to see the trial of those accused of killing my husband Roger Pratt.