FORMER talk show host and attorney-at-law Antoinette Haughton Cardenas was a no-show at the funeral service for her late father, Ken Haughton at the St Cyprian’s Anglican Church, Highgate, St Mary, just over a week ago.

Haughton Cardenas who drew inspiration from her politician father, could only pay homage to him in a tribute printed on the official funeral programme and read by a relative at the funeral on Saturday, June 16, describing him as “an amazing man full of love for his family, his community and his country”.

HAUGHTON CARDENAS… wanted by Jamaican law enforcers

Haughton Cardenas is wanted by Jamaican law enforcers, after she jumped bail almost three years ago in cases involving fraudulent conversion.

Authorities have since failed to locate her, although speculation is rife that she fled Jamaica for another Caribbean island.

Haughton Cardenas, who co-founded the now defunct political organisation, the United People’s Party in 2002, failed to answer charges in the Corporate Area and St Thomas courts in December 2009 and February 2010.

Her attorney Terrence Ballentine told Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey in the St Andrew RM court in December 2009 that his client was sick, and the warrant was stayed. But when she did not show for a mention date in another matter in St Thomas two months later, a warrant was issued for her arrest. The stay on the first warrant was also lifted.

She had been on bail after she was arrested earlier in 2009, accused of stealing several million dollars from some of her clients.

The General Legal Council, acting upon a recommendation by its disciplinary committee, struck her from the roll of attorneys allowed to do legal work in Jamaica, also in 2009.

Obviously unable to bear her complete absence from the funeral of her beloved father, the firebrand Haughton Cardenas resorted to a written tribute.

“Daddy loved humanity, and throughout his life expressed concern about issues of poverty and injustice all over the world.

“Daddy was a warm, hands-on father who mommy would describe as ‘running ward’ every night. What she referred to was his visiting all of our rooms every night before he went to bed to ensure that we were allright,” she said.

Giving no indication from whence she was sending the tribute, Haughton Cardenas, who was raised in the Central St Mary community of Islington, said that the early political teachings of her father, helped to inspire her in later years.

“The politics of the world, especially anti-colonial politics, was always discussed in our house. I grew up with stories of Patrick Lumumba, Jomo Kenyatta and the many leaders of the anti-colonial movement as told by my dad.

“We knew about South African racism and the unilateral declaration of Independence by Ian Smith in Rhodesia. He told us about Paul Robeson the African-American singer, actor and activist against racism. He also shared a story about the friendship between Norman Manley, one of his heroes, and Thurgood Marshal, the first African-American Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

“One of my most vivid memories of my father is of him handing me a book about Mahatma Gandhi saying: ‘Read this book. It is the story about the greatest man that ever walked the earth in the 20th century’,” Haughton Cardenas recalled.

Ken Haughton, a former chairman of the All-island Jamaica Cane Farmers Association, and also a former chairman of the Cocoa Industry Board, died May 28, aged 93.

His body was interred in Martin, St Mary.