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Canadian woman seeks justice in her country, claiming she was denied this in Jamaica
8:54 pm, Mon May 26, 2014
Cathy Clayson (centre) leaving court on Friday(1 of 1)
Three years after Canadian Paul Martin was acquitted of charges related to the slashing of his wife's throat while they were vacationing in Jamaica, she is now is seeking a judgment in a Canadian court that he did indeed commit the act.
According to Canadian media reports, Cathy Clayson is asking the court in Oshawa, Ontario to not only grant her a divorce from Paul Martin and end his access to their two children; she also wants the court to find that Martin slashed her neck with a knife and strangled her on an isolated road in the north western Jamaica parish of Trelawny on Dec. 23, 2010.
Martin, an elementary school teacher, was acquitted in Jamaica in 2011 after an 11-day trial. He told the court in Falmouth in an unsworn statement that it was Clayson who attacked him with the knife and he was defending himself when she was cut.
In her opening address, Martha McCarthy, the attorney for Clayson, told the court the evidence will show Martin committed “the ultimate breach of trust from which there can be no returning.”
Clayson is seeking damages, if the court finds Martin liable on a balance of probabilities, a lower standard of proof than in a criminal case, which requires a finding of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
2004
Clayson and Martin were married in 2004, but Clayson told the court they began having marital troubles after she became pregnant with their first child in the fall of that year.
The December 2010 vacation was to have been a getaway with their neighbours, but the other couple didn’t want to go to Jamaica, which Martin was set on, Clayson said. He booked the trip anyway, but she, too, did not want to go, she said.
She testified that there was not much warmth between the two of them during their vacation in Montego Bay, their time away together not doing much for the relationship.
It was while they were en route to the airport to fly home, she testified, that Martin told her he wanted to make a detour to take some photographs from a nearby cliff.
That detour ended in the slashing of her throat miles away in the adjoining parish of Trelawny and the accusation that she was deliberately attacked by her husband who tried to kill her.
Not satisfied with the oucome of the trial in Jamaica, Clayson is hoping for a more favourable verdict in the Canadian court.
'Circus'
Shortly after the acquittal she told Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper that the Jamaican court was a 'circus'.
Recalling that her family helping police comb the bush in search of the missing knife, she described the situation as "living in the twilight zone down there... We didn’t know what to expect. You didn’t know who to believe; who to trust.”
Martin, on the other hand, maintained his innoncence, praised the Jamaican police, the prosecutors and defence lawyers and described the trial as "extremely professionally done."
8:54 pm, Mon May 26, 2014
Cathy Clayson (centre) leaving court on Friday(1 of 1)
Three years after Canadian Paul Martin was acquitted of charges related to the slashing of his wife's throat while they were vacationing in Jamaica, she is now is seeking a judgment in a Canadian court that he did indeed commit the act.
According to Canadian media reports, Cathy Clayson is asking the court in Oshawa, Ontario to not only grant her a divorce from Paul Martin and end his access to their two children; she also wants the court to find that Martin slashed her neck with a knife and strangled her on an isolated road in the north western Jamaica parish of Trelawny on Dec. 23, 2010.
Martin, an elementary school teacher, was acquitted in Jamaica in 2011 after an 11-day trial. He told the court in Falmouth in an unsworn statement that it was Clayson who attacked him with the knife and he was defending himself when she was cut.
In her opening address, Martha McCarthy, the attorney for Clayson, told the court the evidence will show Martin committed “the ultimate breach of trust from which there can be no returning.”
Clayson is seeking damages, if the court finds Martin liable on a balance of probabilities, a lower standard of proof than in a criminal case, which requires a finding of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
2004
Clayson and Martin were married in 2004, but Clayson told the court they began having marital troubles after she became pregnant with their first child in the fall of that year.
The December 2010 vacation was to have been a getaway with their neighbours, but the other couple didn’t want to go to Jamaica, which Martin was set on, Clayson said. He booked the trip anyway, but she, too, did not want to go, she said.
She testified that there was not much warmth between the two of them during their vacation in Montego Bay, their time away together not doing much for the relationship.
It was while they were en route to the airport to fly home, she testified, that Martin told her he wanted to make a detour to take some photographs from a nearby cliff.
That detour ended in the slashing of her throat miles away in the adjoining parish of Trelawny and the accusation that she was deliberately attacked by her husband who tried to kill her.
Not satisfied with the oucome of the trial in Jamaica, Clayson is hoping for a more favourable verdict in the Canadian court.
'Circus'
Shortly after the acquittal she told Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper that the Jamaican court was a 'circus'.
Recalling that her family helping police comb the bush in search of the missing knife, she described the situation as "living in the twilight zone down there... We didn’t know what to expect. You didn’t know who to believe; who to trust.”
Martin, on the other hand, maintained his innoncence, praised the Jamaican police, the prosecutors and defence lawyers and described the trial as "extremely professionally done."