The sheriff and the buses

Head bailiff for Kingston and St Andrew, Augustus Sherriah, known as the sheriff, is the man at the centre of the seizure of Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) buses on order of the Supreme Court. He has been on the job since 1973.

"A person would apply to the bailiff of the court to become an assistant bailiff. So I was an assistant bailiff for a number of years from 1973 until 1983. The bailiff applied for another job and I was recommended by the bar association through attorney-at-law K.C. Burke to become the bailiff," Sherriah said.

He was appointed bailiff for Kingston in 1998, and for Kingston and St Andrew in 2004.

Sherriah said he was a special constable in the Island Special Constabulary Force, assigned to the Kingston Civil Court, when he got interested in becoming a bailiff, but was insulted by the bailiff at the time.

"The bailiff said him naw give no special constable the work, 'cause special constable a idiot," Sherriah said. But the bailiff would soon have to seek Sherriah's help to serve a warrant in an area he was fearful of going to.

born to be a bailiff

"One day he had a job to do downtown and he didn't want to go to that area, so he went and called me and when I went there. He got sick and it was me who completed the job at 11:30 in the night. Two days after that he said 'you are born to be a bailiff and I want you to come work with me'," Sherriah said.

Sherriah has been involved in bus seizures apart from the JUTC. He said there was one man regarded as one of the most dangerous in Jamaica, who had a bus company. "He used to have his buses running from Kingston to Spanish Town, nobody could go to him, not even police," he said.

"I took the warrants to him and said I need to collect the money or I'm going to seize the bus. And he said 'seize them no, seize them!'" Sherriah said. The bailiff did just that.

"Mi jus' go downtown and, when the bus drive up, mi just go in there and take out the key and call wrecker companies to come and move the bus. But when they heard whose it was they said 'no sah'," he recalled.

lion heart

One wrecker driver eventually agreed, after Sherriah made him an offer he could not refuse. "When I steered the bus, the superintendent then said 'boy, you must have a lion heart, because mi never see anyone mix up with that man like that and mi sorry fi you because them going to come kill you'. But I said 'mi no fear'," Sherriah said.

The money was eventually paid over and the bus released without incident.

In another case, though, Sherriah seized assets belonging to a relative of a superintendent of police and that almost caused him his life. "The policeman said I never had any authority to do that and two big men hold me and carry me outside and flash me out in the road. I fell on my chest on some asphalt that was bubbling up. To this day no hair can grow there," Sherriah said.

He said he had a good working relationship with the former Jamaica Omnibus Service (JOS). "When you go to the JOS with a order for seizure and sale, they would sit down with you and work out a thing where they pay a substantial amount of the debt and work out something for monthly instalments. So they didn't tell you that 'mi a give you wah mi way give you'," he said.

Sherriah said he will demit office on January 12, 2015. He says he earns a small salary and only continue with the job because he is passionate.

sheldon.williams@gleanerjm.com