Copyright caymancompass
The main headline in the 25 Sept. 1975 edition of The Caymanian Compass, ‘Fight Erupts in S.D.A. East End Church’, was for a story describing how church members received a broken jaw, fractured rubs, lacerations and multiple injuries when a “near riot” took place, apparently over an unwanted minister. Police arrested one person for breach of the dangerous and offensive weapons law, and said there were likely to be other charges brought against other people involved when they finish their investigations. The Jean Doucet case, where the former chairman of the liquidated Interbank Group was charged with fraudulent conversion of gold bullion, continued to work its way through the courts. He was scheduled to appear in front of Magistrate Jim Shaw on 20 Oct., either for the beginning of the main trial or the start of a preliminary hearing, which would be determined at that date. Doucet had made six court appearances so far since he had been brought back to Grand Cayman under police escort from Monaco on 16 Aug. He remained on remand, facing 24 charges of fraud. The new Government Administrative Building on Elgin Avenue was almost completed, as shown in a photo on the front page. A handing-over ceremony was scheduled to take place imminently with representatives of contractors McAlpine Ltd, consultants and architects Rutkowski Bradford and Partners, and government through Stewart Cook, chief engineer of the Public Works Department. Furniture was due to arrive soon, with moving in likely to start mid-October. The first section of the editorial called for all “medical services to be upgraded in order to meet all eventualities and emergencies”, saying doctors needed to be posted at the government hospital for ‘on-the-spot’ duty to enable 24-hour service, and that every district needed to have at least one medical practitioner. The editorial concluded, “What we really need in the Cayman Islands are the best and most up-to-date medical facilities, and to make sure they are readily available at all hours.”
