Stung by her husband's acquittal on charges of slitting her throat, an Ajax woman now faces a custody battle.
The day she claims her husband tried to slit her throat on a Jamaican roadside, Cathy Lee Clayson felt as though she was watching herself in “a really bad horror movie.”
“It was like a 20-minute . . . nightmare of trying to escape (with) my life,” she said.
The alleged attack prompted a year-long saga that culminated in a November trial.
Her estranged husband, 44-year-old Paul Martin, was found not guilty and returned home after 11 months in the country, four spent in jail.
But with two young children in the picture, the story has yet to reveal its ending.
“It’s been a horrible ordeal and it’s just going to continue,” Clayson, 35, said in a matter-of-fact tone from the Ajax home she once shared with Martin.
“The day the verdict came in, I was just overwhelmed with feelings and emotion and felt sick to my stomach that this man who — I know what he’s done to me — is going to walk free in Canada.”
While Martin, who taught grades 5 and 6 at St. Francis de Sales Catholic School in Ajax, sat in prison accused of trying to kill her, Clayson told her children their father was teaching in Jamaica.
Their 3-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter still don’t know any different.
“That’s all they know as of today. Just trying to do the best I can to protect them,” she said.
“My eldest son, well, he’s 16, so he knows everything,” she said, referring to a child from a previous relationship.
Clayson won’t comment on an ensuing custody battle but said she has had her children “from the get-go,” since Martin was charged with wounding with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
In a previous interview with the Star, Martin expressed his desire to “be a daddy again” and according to a source, a family court matter is already underway. The estranged couple now communicates only through lawyers.
Martin did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The saga began Dec. 23, 2010, on the final day of the couple’s Caribbean vacation to revive their failing marriage. They checked out of their Montego Bay resort and were to head to the airport in a rented SUV, but stopped along the coast so Martin could take some last-minute photos.
That’s where the stories diverge.
In Martin’s version of events, it was in fact Clayson who attacked him. The jury ultimately believed his story.
Martin gave an unsworn statement in court, one of three ways an accused can testify in Jamaica. He said his wife attacked him with a knife and he was defending himself when she was cut.
But Clayson will have none of it.
“His story was just unbelievable,” she said, insisting her DNA, not his, was found all over the car, and that his so-called defensive wounds consisted only of bruises. “What he’s done to me was malicious, premeditated.”
There are plenty of twists, including the fact that Martin admitted to initially lying to police about the incident, saying the couple had been robbed and his wife attacked. It was Clayson, in fact, who came up with that idea in what she said was a desperate attempt to get to the hospital and save her own life.
Since the beginning, she said, her story has not changed.
As she sat in the SUV, she said, Martin came from behind and slit her throat. “Not only once but he tried to go at me again,” she said.
Clayson said she managed to escape the car and run down the road, but Martin chased her down, put her back in the car and started to strangle her. He accused her of having an affair.
She remembers yelling her children’s names and asking, “What have you done, what have you done to me? Oh God help me.”
Eventually, she jumped out of the moving car and was rescued by a passing pickup driver.
She was taken to hospital where she underwent surgery for her throat wound.
Clayson describes her injury as a 25-centimetre gash across her neck that cut through tissue, fat and muscle, just missing her larynx.
Her husband never physically harmed her before the incident, she said, but had a “controlling nature.”
Martin was known in the community as a great teacher, she said. “Up until Dec. 23, I could probably say the exact same thing. But he became someone else.”
As for the future, Clayson plans to eventually return to work as a manager at the Royal Bank, but is taking it one day at a time.
She worries about running into Martin, who is reportedly living with his family in Scarborough. She would not say whether the children have seen their father since his return.
“At end of the day it’s the children that are impacted forever.”
Stung by her husband's acquittal on charges of slitting her throat, an Ajax woman now faces a custody battle.
The day she claims her husband tried to slit her throat on a Jamaican roadside, Cathy Lee Clayson felt as though she was watching herself in “a really bad horror movie.”
“It was like a 20-minute . . . nightmare of trying to escape (with) my life,” she said.
The alleged attack prompted a year-long saga that culminated in a November trial.
Her estranged husband, 44-year-old Paul Martin, was found not guilty and returned home after 11 months in the country, four spent in jail.
But with two young children in the picture, the story has yet to reveal its ending.
“It’s been a horrible ordeal and it’s just going to continue,” Clayson, 35, said in a matter-of-fact tone from the Ajax home she once shared with Martin.
“The day the verdict came in, I was just overwhelmed with feelings and emotion and felt sick to my stomach that this man who — I know what he’s done to me — is going to walk free in Canada.”
While Martin, who taught grades 5 and 6 at St. Francis de Sales Catholic School in Ajax, sat in prison accused of trying to kill her, Clayson told her children their father was teaching in Jamaica.
Their 3-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter still don’t know any different.
“That’s all they know as of today. Just trying to do the best I can to protect them,” she said.
“My eldest son, well, he’s 16, so he knows everything,” she said, referring to a child from a previous relationship.
Clayson won’t comment on an ensuing custody battle but said she has had her children “from the get-go,” since Martin was charged with wounding with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
In a previous interview with the Star, Martin expressed his desire to “be a daddy again” and according to a source, a family court matter is already underway. The estranged couple now communicates only through lawyers.
Martin did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The saga began Dec. 23, 2010, on the final day of the couple’s Caribbean vacation to revive their failing marriage. They checked out of their Montego Bay resort and were to head to the airport in a rented SUV, but stopped along the coast so Martin could take some last-minute photos.
That’s where the stories diverge.
In Martin’s version of events, it was in fact Clayson who attacked him. The jury ultimately believed his story.
Martin gave an unsworn statement in court, one of three ways an accused can testify in Jamaica. He said his wife attacked him with a knife and he was defending himself when she was cut.
But Clayson will have none of it.
“His story was just unbelievable,” she said, insisting her DNA, not his, was found all over the car, and that his so-called defensive wounds consisted only of bruises. “What he’s done to me was malicious, premeditated.”
There are plenty of twists, including the fact that Martin admitted to initially lying to police about the incident, saying the couple had been robbed and his wife attacked. It was Clayson, in fact, who came up with that idea in what she said was a desperate attempt to get to the hospital and save her own life.
Since the beginning, she said, her story has not changed.
As she sat in the SUV, she said, Martin came from behind and slit her throat. “Not only once but he tried to go at me again,” she said.
Clayson said she managed to escape the car and run down the road, but Martin chased her down, put her back in the car and started to strangle her. He accused her of having an affair.
She remembers yelling her children’s names and asking, “What have you done, what have you done to me? Oh God help me.”
Eventually, she jumped out of the moving car and was rescued by a passing pickup driver.
She was taken to hospital where she underwent surgery for her throat wound.
Clayson describes her injury as a 25-centimetre gash across her neck that cut through tissue, fat and muscle, just missing her larynx.
Her husband never physically harmed her before the incident, she said, but had a “controlling nature.”
Martin was known in the community as a great teacher, she said. “Up until Dec. 23, I could probably say the exact same thing. But he became someone else.”
As for the future, Clayson plans to eventually return to work as a manager at the Royal Bank, but is taking it one day at a time.
She worries about running into Martin, who is reportedly living with his family in Scarborough. She would not say whether the children have seen their father since his return.
“At end of the day it’s the children that are impacted forever.”
Teacher's attempted murder trial underway in Jamaica
A schoolteacher and a banker, once in love, go on a Caribbean vacation to mend their failing marriage, leaving their kids at home with family.
The tropical trip ends with a shocking roadside throat-slashing, the wife in hospital, the husband in jail charged with trying to kill her — a year-long legal battle ahead of them.
That battle ended Tuesday, when 44-year-old Paul Martin, who taught grades 5 and 6 at an Ajax Catholic school before the ill-fated holiday, was found not guilty by a Jamaican jury.
A delay in getting his passport back from authorities has postponed Martin’s return to Canada, but his lawyer said he remains patient. After all, what’s a few more days after an 11-month nightmare?
A defeated and devastated Cathy-Lee Clayson, Martin’s now-estranged wife, returned to Canada on Wednesday after flying in for the trial earlier this month.
Clayson, 35, has opted not to comment for now, but a friend who accompanied her to Jamaica for the trial spoke to the Star just before they boarded a flight to Toronto.
“It’s disheartening when she has the cut on her throat, the evidence, hard evidence right there,” said the woman, who did not want to be identified.
“It’s been tough. And then now with a not-guilty verdict, that’s very, very, very tough. It’s extremely scary for her.”
Martin was jailed in Jamaica for four months following his wife’s injury. He was released on bail in April but forced to remain in the country.
He and Clayson will likely face further legal proceedings, this time related to custody of their two children and their marriage.
Many matters are yet to be determined, including whether or not Martin will resume his teaching post, the impact of the couple’s ongoing dispute on the community and the delicate matter of custody arrangements for their two children.
A family court matter is already underway, according to one source.
Martin has elected not to speak at this time.
A spokesperson for the Durham Catholic District School Board confirmed Martin is still employed with the board but could not say whether or when he will return to teach at St. Francis de Sales Catholic School in Ajax.
“We haven’t received any official notification from Mr. Martin or anybody representing (him),” said superintendent Tracy Barill. “Once we are contacted officially, we’ll have to go through a process at that time.”
Last December, on the final day of the Caribbean vacation, Martin and Clayson checked out of their Montego Bay resort and hopped in a rented SUV to head for the airport.
Telling his wife he wanted to take photos of a nearby cliff, Martin drove away from the airport and turned onto a secluded road, according to court testimony.
What happened next was fiercely disputed by the pair and their lawyers.
Clayson testified that as they sat in the vehicle, her husband slit her throat twice with a knife and tried to strangle her, accusing her of having an affair.
He then drove back to the main road, where Clayson jumped out of the vehicle and was eventually rescued by a passing pickup driver. She was taken to hospital where she underwent surgery to her throat.
Meanwhile, Martin drove to the police station and told investigators that an armed robber had attacked the couple — a story he later admitted was false.
In an unsworn statement, Martin testified that it was his wife who attacked him with a knife and he was defending himself when she was cut.
Martin’s lawyer, Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, suggested in court that Clayson was the one who proposed they tell police she had been attacked during a robbery, and her husband agreed to it.
Clayson admitted she had come up with the plan, but said she did so in a desperate attempt to save her own life as she pleaded with her husband to take her to the hospital.
In the end, Martin’s story swayed a jury of five men and two women, who found him not guilty of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. The original charge of attempted murder was reduced before the 11-day trial began.
According to Nathan Robb, a private lawyer hired by Clayson to help prosecute the case, she shouted at her husband as he left the courthouse, calling him a “coward” and a “bastard”.
Ontarian acquitted in slashing coming home
Canadian acquitted in Jamaican throat-slashing trialCanadian's throat-slashing trial starts in JamaicaAn Ontario man acquitted in Jamaica of slashing his wife's throat has told CBC News he is eager to get back to his children and his job as an elementary school teacher.
Paul Martin was accused of violently attacking Cathy Lee Clayson on the final day of a vacation in the Caribbean nation last December.
Paul Martin claimed his wife was the aggressor and was cut in a struggle for a knife. CBC“After 11 months of this ordeal, I am relieved that the truth has finally come out,” said Martin, speaking to CBC News from the Montego Bay area on Saturday.
“I was unanimously found innocent of an offence I absolutely did not commit."
During the trial, Martin’s attempted-murder charge was reduced to wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
A seven-person jury acquitted him on Tuesday.
Martin's lawyers persuaded the jury that Clayson was the aggressor and was wounded in a struggle that she started — a change from the original claim that she had been attacked by a carjacker.
The Jamaican Observer reported that Clayson admitted in court that it was her idea to lie about the robbery, and that Martin is a good father to their children. Still, Clayson maintains that her husband violently attacked her last year.
"The forensic expert did not support her story," Martin's lawyer, Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, told CBC News, adding that Clayson's claims were undermined by inconsistencies.
"She was found to have been departing from earlier statements she had made to the police."
Martin eager to return home
Martin spent four months in a Jamaican jail before being granted bail in April. Until now, he hasn't been allowed to leave the country.
Martin did not speak directly to reporters while case was making its way through the courts.
In his interview with CBC News on Saturday, he said he was not interested in rehashing the details of the case and said that he is eager to move on with his life when he returns to Canada in the coming week.
“The worst part of this is I’ve been away from my children for a year,” said Martin, who is the father of two children, 3 and 6. “That’s just been very painful.”
He said he hopes to return to St. Francis de Sales school, where he taught Grade 5.
“I’m looking forward to getting back in the lives of the kids and resuming my job,” he said. “I love the kids I teach.
The Durham Catholic District School Board refused to say whether Martin will be reinstated, saying only that he is still listed as an employee.
“I don’t even want to think of what happened. I look forward to moving forward and getting back into my life that I miss so dearly.”
Glenroy Sinclair, Special
First posted: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 08:10 AM MST
Updated: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 08:15 AM MST
Paul Martin and Cathy-Lee Clayson in their wedding photo.
HANOVER, Jamaica — The lawyer for a Canadian teacher accused of trying to kill his wife during a vacation in Jamaica last year has suggested the wife was the aggressor in the fight.
Paul Martin, a 43-year-old from Ajax, Ont., is accused of trying to murder his wife, Cathy-Lee Clayson, on Dec. 23, 2010. His trial began Monday.
On Tuesday, defence lawyer Jacqueline Samuels-Brown, one of Jamaica's most prominent lawyers, raised questions about Clayson's credibility and grilled her during cross-examination. Samuels-Brown suggested Clayson had agreed to tell local police that an armed robber had attacked the couple.
Martin is accused of taking his wife to a deserted road in Stewart Castle, in the neighbouring parish of Trelawny, and slashing her throat and attempting to strangle her, after accusing her of having an extramarital affair.
But Martin says he and his wife, a bank manager, were the victims of a robbery attempt while sightseeing in an area that is known for its tourist attractions.
Prosecutor Paula Llewelyn completed her examination of Clayson on Monday. At least three other prosecution witnesses are expected to take the stand Wednesday.
Clayson told the jury that she and her husband left the Iberostar Resort in Montego Bay on Dec. 23 to go sightseeing before going to the Sangster International Airport to board a flight to Canada.
She said Martin stopped in a deserted area and then attacked her and accused her of being unfaithful. A taxi driver eventually rescued her after she escaped from the car.
Martin and Clayson were married on July 17, 2004, and have two children together.
Martin's mother, who kept wiping away tears, was accompanied by her husband and two of Martin's brothers. Two brothers and a sister-in-law were also present to offer moral support to Clayson.
