STEPHEN FRAY’S…UNNECESSARY 20 YEARS

Hijack pain lingers – Stephen Fray’s mom, dad still hurting

Two years after CanJet drama – ‘It cannot be how you deal with a young life’

DAWN Fray has difficulty putting into words the toll her son’s incarceration has been taking on her and her family. “It’s really hard. It’s so difficult, so strange… I can’t find the words to tell you,” she reveals to the Sunday Observer. Her words are interspersed with long pauses and sighs.

On April 19, two years ago — the first of a two-day official visit to the island by Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper — her son Stephen breezed past security at Montego Bay’s Sangster International Airport, boarded CanJet Flight 918 — a Canada-bound charter — wielded a gun and ordered the crew to take him to Cuba.

He held the passengers and crew hostage for hours, before being overpowered by police.

Young Fray was slapped with 10 gun-related charges, including assault, illegal possession of firearm and ammunition, shooting with intent, robbery and breaches of the Civil Aviation Act. Rejecting his defence of insanity, the court found him guilty of eight of the charges and sentenced him to 83 years in prison, which will run concurrently, meaning he will serve 20 years.

But his family is appealing. They believe Stephen was wrongfully charged and that the punishment was harsh and excessive. In the meantime, they struggle daily with the reality of the situation and in two recent emotional interviews with the Sunday Observer Stephen’s mother and his dad, Earl, told us about the hurt, distress, and burden of t

he legal fees and how they rely on their faith to get them through.

“It is gross. It’s unheard of and I wonder what the agenda was… It’s ugly. He was so young. What he needed was care and protection,” Dawn Fray said of the sentence, her voice raw with pain.

Making the point that her son, then 22, was found to be mentally unstable by two different psychiatrists prior to his trial, and that it was his first offence, the mother said her pleas to the judge for mercy should have been heeded.

“It cannot be how you deal with a young life. You have to be humane and contemplate the future,” she said.

Earl Fray was just as upset that his son was being treated like a common criminal.

“The youth of today are the future of tomorrow and if we don’t help them we’re going to

be in some serious trouble,” he said. “You put a sick person with hard-core criminals, murderers, gunmen, it’s only going to put more pressure on that sick person because he is going to think that another inmate is going to slash his throat or beat him up and just create more problems.”

The Frays are divorced and live in different towns, but determined to keep their son’s spirits up, they make the trip to the prison in Kingston regularly. He has good days and bad days, they said, but are encouraged that he is taking his medication and tries to keep occupied by reading the Bible and magazines they take him.

“He’s up and down. He has his episodes. Sometimes he’s lucid and another time you have to make an effort to figure out what he’s saying and times when he won’t clean up or anything. Every couple of weeks he has his episodes,” Dawn Fray said.

I go up and down, too,” she quipped, referring to how she deals with the situation. “I have my episodes, but you have to deal with the reality of the situation. He’s there and you have to keep him stabilised so that he doesn’t lose hope.”

Added the senior Fray: “We just try make sure him get him visits and make sure him keep the faith because in there, you need the faith.”

“I’m particularly concerned that he gets good food since he is on medication, but most of the time when I visit I spend a lot of time reassuring him, telling him everything is going to be OK, and that’s what keeps me grounded also. When I talk to him, hear him and touch him, I feel better. That’s my medicine, so to speak,” said his mother, who taes a home-cooked meal, cereals, snacks and fruits each Wednesday when she visits.
For Earl Fray, coping means praying, immersing himself in workouts and listening to music. He admitted to crying alone and said he has trouble sleeping, some nights.
“To keep my sanity I pray to God,” he said. “I give God thanks (for) keeping me strong. I have to keep strong for (my family).”
Of late he’s been keeping a low profile; he doesn’t go to church as often and he has scaled back his visits to the Dolphin Cove swim club where he is a member. He doesn’t want to have to rehash the story everytime someone asks, he said. It’s too painful.
One of the things he finds particularly vexing though, is the way, he said, inmates, especially those who are mentally ill, are treated while in lock-up.
“The system out here, I don’t know how people cope with it. You can see that some of these youngsters in there don’t belong there. You can see that some of them just get themselves caught up. You can see that they just need some help, not Stephen alone, other people’s kids, too,” he said.
“What got me so shocked was when I went to Tower Street and yuh see when yuh loss people pickney, ah dere so yuh see dem, enuh! Dere so yuh see dem! When I saw them I almost break down, man,” he told the Sunday Observer.
“You cyaan really blame the warders or the policemen there because they get orders to carry out dem work. All they do is just go there, they don’t even see that whosoever is to take dem medication taking it. They just lackadaisical,” he alleged.
“Yuh cyaan do that! Yuh can’t treat people like that, because they are just human like anybody else.”
Commissioner of Corrections Colonel Sean Prendergast confirmed that young Fray is now being held at the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre, after being transferred from the facility on South Camp Road almost three months ago. He would only say it was out of “security concerns”.
He, however, disagreed with Mr Fray’s take on the treatment of inmates.
“I don’t agree,” he said when informed of the father’s comments.
“(Stephen) is seen by the institution psychiatrist on a regular basis and they check to make sure he is taking his medication. I have spoken to Mrs Fray on a number of occasions to allay her fears and to let her know that we are in fact taking care of her son,” he said.
That point was corroborated by Dawn Fray. “I’m reassured by the authorities that he does get what he needs,” she had told us earlier.
But the cost of the medication is hefty, and leaves the family wondering how others less fortunate than themselves manage.
“Boy, suppose we didn’t have a little money?” asked Earl Fray. “I can’t imagine other people who don’t have money to afford that expensive medication. They can cost up to between $12,000 and $15,000 a month. So you wonder what’s going to happen to those people’s kids who can’t afford that.
“They just take the key, have them in the system, lock them up, throw away the key because you can’t maintain them. It only going to make them get worse and you lose them in the system because the parents can’t afford to help them and they just stay in there, waste them life and waste taxpayers’ money,” said a deeply upset Fray.
While the family can afford the medication, the legal fees are another story. Fray disclosed to the Sunday Observer that he has had to sell some of the family’s possessions and that they have changed their lifestyle.
“Because we’ve been trying to get the lawyer’s money together, we try and cut off a lot of things. Plus, I don’t really owe that much… We sell some things and my family members help and I’m kind of happy that I don’t have any babies because my daughter and my other son really help.
“My family really stick with me, they help with paying the bills and so on. Good friends help too, but mostly it’s family,” said Fray.
Recalling the night she learned that Stephen attempted to hijack the plane, Dawn Fray said she became instantly numb.
“I was numb. I was traumatised for a long, long time. My daughter used to say ‘Mommy’s lost her memory and Daddy’s having flu all the time’,” she said.
She admitted, however, that prior to the CanJet incident, there were signs — which she described as “frightening” — that her youngest of three children was not coping well.
The February before the attempted hijacking, while spending time with her in Mandeville, he kept his room shuttered and would spend all day there by himself watching TV.
Then there were the times he would turn his phone off for extended periods. Those who wanted to get in touch with him either had to call his dad or his two siblings.
There was also the time when the very popular, very socially active Stephen suddenly stopped going out and instead stayed home sequestered in his room.
You could almost hear the tears in Dawn Fray’s voice as she added: “Those are warning signs, but it wouldn’t have crossed my mind that it was a mental issue. I thought he was depressed, maybe, but never that it was so serious.”
His father, too, noticed the changes but thought it was a phase.
“If I had known that Stephen was going through that, I would attack it long time, but you know kids, young boys go through a phase and yuh say ‘cho, him ah grow up’… I saw that he started to keep by himself but I thought it was a phase. I didn’t know,” he said.
In spite of all the challenges, however, the family remains hopeful.
“Once he has family around and makes sure he takes his medication, he’ll be alright. So I think the best place for him is to be at home around his family members,” Earl Fray insisted. “He was wrongfully charged. Him nuh supposed to dey there so. It’s not his fault.”
But at this point the outcome of the appeal, for which no date has yet been set, will be anyone’s guess.
“I can only pray,” Dawn Fray said.