A BRITISH Jamaican is suing a company to stop them ‘bulldozing’ his family’s land on Bob Marley beach in Jamaica.

Norman Stephenson, from St Paul’s, Bristol, says his family will not be bullied off their 2.79 acres of beach in the Bull Bay area. 

He is fighting to protect three acres on the famous beach in St Thomas from becoming a £160 million luxury hotel resort. 

Stephenson said he has been fully supported by members of the Marley Family and said Ziggy, Cedella, Sharon and Stephen Marley have all assisted him in some way. 

Stephenson, whose father lived on the beach for over 50 years, told The Voice, the hotel plans would destroy the cultural and religious heritage of the beach.

The row comes after campaigners said ordinary Jamaicans were being shut out of their own beaches because hotels only wanted wealthy tourists. 

Stephenson’s case is currently being heard in Jamaica’s Supreme Court. He says he has been paying land tax since 2008, but the developers dispute his ownership of the idyllic beach.

Reggae icon Bob Marley often visited the beach leading it to be named after the late legend.

Stephenson wants the land protected as a cultural heritage site because it was also home to one of the earliest Rastafari communities in Jamaica after many fled major cities following persecution and harassment from colonial government authorities.  

The land was also believed to be a hideout for runaway slave Three-Fingered Jack, who went on to form a Maroon community on the island.

Stephenson’s father, renowned Rastafari elder Gladstone Stephenson – also known as Bongo Gabby – was a spiritual mentor.

Stephenson, director of Afi Dance – a company that promotes health and wellbeing through African dance and drumming – told The Voice about his deep connection to the beach. 

“I always felt like this beach needed protection [but] because of my father’s staunch Rastafarian beliefs of not dealing with Babylon he didn’t have the correct papers for the beach. 

“The land is absolutely beautiful and it was hidden, nobody really knew about it, only the locals, but this was the beach where Bob Marley and The Wailers lived.” 

In 1992, he travelled to Jamaica and found his father, who he says was an “original Nyahbinghi” and they developed a relationship over the next 16 years – before he sadly passed away in January 2007. 

Before his father died, Stephenson says he was given permission to apply for the “proper papers to protect everything.” 

In 2008, he took on the task of trying to secure the beach land and started to pay land tax for the plot in “small parts”. 

Stephenson, who travels back to Jamaica from the UK every year. He claims whenever he went to the land tax office there was a “major problem” and a lot of confusion as “they were not able to keep consistent records”. 

Rastafarians’ connection with Bob Marley beach goes back to 1958 when several Rastas were arrested and killed by British colonial police for possession of cannabis – a plant used as a religious sacrament. 

Five years later, the Coral Gardens Massacre occurred in Jamaica, which saw hundreds of Rastafarians detained and attacked, as police searched for three Rastas who they claimed burned down a gas station. 

The incident resulted in a huge state crackdown on Rastas.

It is estimated 150 ‘beard men’ were arrested, with many others beaten, killed or had their locks forcibly cut and trimmed.

Many Rastafarians fled the city and found safety and peace on the beach, with Stephenson’s father. 

According to Mr Stephenson, the original owner, Leslie Wright, allowed his father and the Rastafarians to live on the land “undisturbed” and never “bothered him” when he was building his home or a Tabernacle on the land. 

LANDLESS

In October 2020, Stephenson went to Jamaica and hired several lawyers who were assisting him with the case. 

Stephenson was born in Red Hills, St Catherine, and came to the United Kingdom in 1964. 

His lawyer in the Supreme Court case, Marcus Goffe said his client had paid “over one million Jamaican dollars maintaining, repairing, renovating and proving the property, as well as on surveys, land valuation and payment of land taxes.” 

He added: “Those are just the receipts he was able to locate after so many years spending on the property since 2008.”

An official Government of Jamaica receipt seen by The Voice, shows that Mr Stephenson paid tax totalling over $205,000 Jamaican dollars (JMD) – which is £1,048 – for tax years 2018/19 and 2019/20. 

However, in March 2020, he claims when he logged in online to make a further payment, using his Taxpayer Registration number (TRN) – a unique Tax ID – he saw the name of a company as owners of the land, who are now ordering his family to leave. 

The company ordered the residents to leave by October last year, which they have refused to do. In July, the company was given the go-ahead to begin construction on 210 acres of land, which includes the contested Bob Marley beach. 

The Voice contacted the company several times and they did not respond to our request for a statement. 

Goffe said situations like this are “very common” but many do not reach the courts because “the title owners just bulldoze and forcibly evict the so-called squatters, most of whom are unaware of their rights or how to enforce them.” 

Goffe says the issues of land ownership for descendants of enslaved African people in Jamaica, is a direct legacy of slavery, as African people were not legally granted any land when they achieved full freedom. 

He added: “Instead there was reparations (£20 million) paid by the British Government of Jamaica to the slave owners and later the imposition of the Torrens land system on the legal system and the landless victims of slavery.

“Hence the majority of Jamaicans who are descendants of those victims of slavery remain landless, treated as squatters on other people’s lands.” 

The Voice contacted the National Land Agency, who holds the records of registered owners of land in Jamaica, who said the matter would be investigated and a “comprehensive response” would be provided, but so far no further information has been received. 

Stephenson claims he was offered a different three acres by representatives of the company, in the same area but not on or near the beach and it was “stoney ground and rubbish” – so he refused the offer.

There are approximately 30 people currently living on the beach, including the Stephenson family, which has been earmarked for development. 

Dr Devon Taylor is the president of Campaign group Jamaica Beach Birthright Environmental Movement (JABBEM) believes the beach should be a designated heritage site due to the historic and longstanding presence of the Rastafari community in the Sugar Loaf Mountain and Bully Bay areas. 

He said: “Norman’s father was important in the establishment and maintenance of the Rastafari way of life and tradition. That site carries significant importance and significant heritage which should be preserved.”

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