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By Alric Lindsay
Anthony Wesley Scott appeared in the Grand Court on February 21, 2025, to face charges of possession of an unlicensed firearm, ammunition and cocaine. He pleaded guilty to the charges.
Regarding the firearm, it was explained in the Grand Court that, on December 13, 2024, Scott was found with a pistol in the vicinity of Banana’s restaurant. He also had two rounds of 9mm ammunition.
Lastly, the Grand Court heard that Scott had cocaine in his possession on December 13, 2024, however, the quantity of cocaine was not disclosed.
Scott was remanded in custody and faces sentencing soon.
Note to readers:
According to the Grand Court, Scott was charged under the Firearms Act (2008 Revision). Under that version of the law, the definition of “firearm” included a pistol or a bullet. This is important to understand because if a person possesses a bullet and a gun, they are separate firearms charges.
Notwithstanding what the Firearms Act states about the consequences of offences, it is typically the case that tourists who arrive in the Cayman Islands with guns or bullets are fined and have no conviction recorded against them.
Since there appears to be a discrepancy between the treatment of Caymanians with firearms offences and tourists, a freedom of information request was sent to the Government in December 2024 to request records confirming the following:
- The total number of individuals convicted of importation and/or possession of guns and/or ammunition from 2019 to 2024.
- Number of Caymanins convicted.
- Number of non-Caymanians convicted.
- Number of years imprisonment received for Caymanians.
- Number of years imprisonment received for non-Caymanians.
- Number of cases where no convictions were recorded for Caymanians.
- Number of cases where no convictions were recorded for non-Caymanians.
- Reasons for not recording convictions against non-Caymanians.
A response dated January 17, 2025, to the freedom of information request was as follows:
The data does not to determine who is Caymanian or foreign nationals. The data does not
disclose this information by nationality, however, please see information in relation to same.
The Criminal Registry cannot review all applications from 2019 to the present to extract the
requested information, as doing so would represent an unreasonable diversion of resources.
Accessing the records manually to determine whether the information can be obtained from
the supporting documents would require a substantial, lengthy, and labour-intensive effort
for this office.
A further response dated February 14, 2025, to the freedom of information request was as follows:
I have considered the further representations by the applicant and find that the Court staff would
still be required to review each file manually to identify and remove any confidential or sealed
documents before making the files available for review and addressing their minds to any
potential data protection issues that may arise. This task would require a considerable amount of
time and manpower beyond the resources currently available to the Courts pursuant to section (9)
of the Freedom of Information Act (2020 Revision).You have the right under section 42 of the Freedom of Information Law to appeal to the
Office of the Ombudsman.
The matter is now with the Ombudsman, with the hope that transparency can be provided.
