Legal fraternity in mourning

The legal fraternity is mourning the death of one of their own whose life was snuffed out by a gunman last Wednesday morning.{{more}}

Bertram Stapleton, 34, was shot to death at around 9 o’clock in the corridor of the second floor of the Hinds Building in Kingstown, while on his way to his office which is located on the third floor.

“It is shocking to me. It is the last thing you expect to hear,” said veteran attorney Arthur Williams.

Williams described Stapleton as an “alright guy”, who “had a flare for the practice of criminal law.”

Bertram Commissiong QC, who also expressed shock and sadness at Stapleton’s demise, said that lawyers have to be careful when they develop certain types of practices.

Ronald Marks, himself a criminal lawyer, said that the news about Stapleton was the last thing that he expected to hear.

Speaking to SEARCHLGHT from China, president of the Bar Association Kay Bacchus Browne said that when she got the news, she was shocked and filled with trepidation.

She said that the Bar Association will be issuing a statement in due course.

“Professionals will have to make sure they protect themselves,” Bacchus Browne said.

Stapleton’s killing took place a day before the tenth anniversary of the July 24, 1998, shooting death of another lawyer, Philton Ambris.

Ambris, who was a junior partner in the law firm of Williams and Williams, received a gunshot wound to his stomach when an angry client stormed the firm’s office.

The gunman, businessman Robert Cambridge, was found dead the next day, presumably having committed suicide.

Arthur Williams and his son Stephen barely escaped death, having had to wrestle the gun away from the assailant.

SEARCHLIGHT asked Williams if this week’s tragic event brought back any memory of his own brush with death.

He said no.

“Not really, man. That fellow was just an ignorant man,” Williams said, referring to Cambridge.

Stapleton, a former police officer in the Antigua and Barbuda police force, studied law in England, then started his law career in Antigua before returning to his native St Vincent and the Grenadines.(KJ)