Shal­iza Has­sanali

He was de­scribed as ruth­less, ar­ro­gant, too hasty and con­tro­ver­sial, but for those who knew Queen's Coun­sel Karl Hud­son-Phillips, he was noth­ing short of warm, hard-work­ing, charm­ing, fear­less and down-to-earth.This was how for­mer am­bas­sador Regi­nald Du­mas yes­ter­day summed up the life of Hud­son-Phillips while de­liv­er­ing the eu­lo­gy at his fu­ner­al ser­vice at the Holy Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral, Port-of-Spain.Hud­son-Phillips, 80, a le­gal lu­mi­nary and po­lit­i­cal pi­o­neer, died on Jan­u­ary 15 in Eng­land.

The ser­vice was at­tend­ed by hun­dreds of mourn­ers, in­clud­ing Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Prakash Ra­mad­har, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard, gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and mem­bers of the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty. They gath­ered to bid farewell to the coun­try's for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al and judge of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court.

The homi­ly was read by Rev Clive Ab­du­lah, who said Hud­son-Phillips was a gi­ant of the old school. Ab­du­lah al­so chas­tised church and po­lit­i­cal lead­ers for fail­ing to give cit­i­zens hope.Regi­nald Du­mas knew Hud­son-Phillip for more than 65 years, hav­ing at­tend­ed Queen's Roy­al Col­lege (QRC) with him. Du­mas said many had de­scribed his friend as ar­ro­gant and as­tute, some even call­ing him "ruth­less," while oth­ers looked at him as be­ing "elite."

"But to those who knew Hud­son," said Du­mas, "he had a warm, com­mon touch about him. He was seen as aloof but was charm­ing."

'He was feared by many'

All these things, Du­mas said, in­di­cat­ed a mul­ti-di­men­sion­al per­son­al­i­ty.At times, Du­mas said, Hud­son-Phillips was "hasty...too hasty," but he worked hard.Even though Hud­son-Phillips was feared by many, which prompt­ed ca­lyp­son­ian Hol­lis Liv­er­pool to pen a song af­ter him, Du­mas said Hud­son-Phillips took his blows and nev­er for­get his hum­ble be­gin­nings.

Du­mas said Hud­son-Phillips was not per­fect: he had faced aca­d­e­m­ic chal­lenges while in Form Five at QRC, for which he was heck­led by his class­mates; but he con­tin­ued to strive for ex­cel­lence.He said one thing Hud­son-Phillips was not­ed for was his fear­less­ness; he had even writ­ten a let­ter to the late Dr Er­ic Williams to take ac­tion against one of his gov­ern­ment min­is­ters who was flout­ing the law.

Du­mas said there were many qual­i­ties to ad­mire in Hud­son-Phillips, but the two that stood out for him were his lead­er­ship style in the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion, and his in­tegri­ty.Hud­son-Phillips, he said, al­so fought against cor­rup­tion."He was a fear­less man...that alone made him a tar­get," said Du­mas, "and even in the midst of his pass­ing, the ven­om per­sists."Try­ing hard to con­tain his tears, Du­mas said: "Hud­son was not on­ly my friend. Part of me is gone and it is not go­ing to come back."

'Shoes too big to fill'

Chil­dren Jen­nifer, Sarah and Kevin spoke high­ly of their fa­ther.Jen­nifer, from Hud­son-Phillips' first mar­riage, said he "em­u­lat­ed what was best. We are bet­ter off hav­ing shared his smile. No stones were left un­turned with him."She said one of the things her dad would al­ways tell her was: "Do not let your heart be trou­bled."Daugh­ter Sarah gave a snap­shot of the life she shared with her fa­ther, stat­ing that tough love was his style.

Sarah said the last e-mail her fa­ther sent her was full of praise and ad­vice: "You have done bril­liant­ly with lit­tle stum­bles. You must steer the course. You did bet­ter than I did in my time," Sarah said, choked with emo­tion.His last ad­vice to Sarah was "to con­tin­ue to work your butt off."Sarah, who is study­ing med­i­cine in Lon­don, said there would nev­er be an­oth­er man in her life like her fa­ther.

"I am the luck­i­est girl to be able to stand next to you, proud to ever call you my fa­ther. Dad, your lega­cy is your ho­n­our." Hud­son-Phillips' son Kevin, a fi­nan­cial con­sul­tant in Lon­don, re­mem­bered the last e-mail his fa­ther for­ward­ed to him. In it, his dad said he was in­ter­est­ed in pur­chas­ing a boat, but had a change of heart be­cause of his age and "your moth­er will howl with dis­ap­proval." Kevin said his fa­ther spoke about want­i­ng to go in the gar­den to prune the trees, but com­plained that he did not have the mus­cle to do the job.

Kevin re­called that Hud­son-Phillips al­so urged him to set his goals for the next ten years, and praised his dad:"Dad, you gave me di­rec­tion, guid­ance and free­dom, and I am a man to­day be­cause of you."

Ramesh breaks down in tears

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, yes­ter­day broke down in tears as he paid fi­nal re­spects dur­ing Karl Hud­son-Phillips's fu­ner­al ser­vice.Ma­haraj, a close and dear friend of Hud­son-Phillips, at­tend­ed the fu­ner­al along with his wife Lynette, al­so a SC.Fol­low­ing the ser­vice, Ma­haraj said Hud­son-Phillips' loss was a heavy blow for him.

"I don't think the life of Karl would be dif­fi­cult for any­one to fol­low. But if it is one thing we should learn, is that he was a man of hon­esty and in­tegri­ty."Ma­haraj said Hud­son-Phillips be­lieved that in pol­i­tics there should be no cor­rup­tion and high stan­dards of pub­lic life should al­ways be main­tained."I think that is rel­e­vant in our so­ci­ety to­day."