I love Westerns. Always have.

If there was a western on at the local cinema I begged my mother to take me.

Then along came television. And there were westerns galore for me to watch.

The scenes I hated and got very upset about were the lynch mobs.

Normally, it was a man wrongfully accused and a mob of people worked up by a few indignant, closed minded, supposedly righteous citizens and activists, would come outside the sheriff’s office. They wanted what they thought was justice. Even if a judge had sentenced the man and it did not fit their idea of punishment, they were going to put that right as they saw it.

The lynch mob.

“Hand over that man so we can hang him,” was the normal cry.

How I hated those people.

I was thankful it could never happen today.

I was wrong.

It can and it does.

Instead of a lynch mob by people parading on mass, they now hide behind the social media platforms and comment with their poison fingers pounding out their vitriolic words on their keyboards.

No one is safe.

So as to keep up with this, the main stream media also jumps on the band wagon and through their own Editorials and Opinions publish ‘facts’ that are not substantiated.

A case in point is the current one of Ato Modibo Stephens. He was tried for using an information and communication technology network to annoy, harass or abuse an underage female, indecent assault and gross indecency. He was found guilty of only the first.

The judge, however, despite Stephens being married to a Caymanian and with a young family, recommended he be deported after he had served 18 months in prison. Stephens is an alien.

His case was heard by the Conditional Release Board in November, 2017, and Stephens was granted conditional release from prison until the completion of his sentence on 4 February, 2019.

The lynch mob were quickly on the scene.

They wanted Stephens gone and the ‘word on the street’ including, sadly some of my media friends, was the government were not going to deport him.

Nowhere had I read or heard any government official say this. That is why iNews Cayman never made any comment or news report on it.

This morning we have now received a Press Release from the Premier’s Office, published in its entirety here, under the title “Cayman Islands Government sets record straight in Stephens deportation matter”.

The opening sentence is:

“The Cabinet of the Cayman Islands has not yet considered the Court’s recommendation for the deportation of Ato Modibo Stephens, despite media reports to the contrary.”

I would have added the word “SOME” in front of ‘media’.

I will never be part of any lynch mob and, whilst I am at the helm of this publication, neither will I publish any comments I conceive to be lynch mob tirade.