“Smile, Little Boy”: Shipping Containers Blocked a Church for 19 Months. The Pastor Won

• A Bermuda pastor was awarded more than $20,000 over containers that blocked his church
• The dispute turned on whether his lease ran for ten years or twenty
• The court found no rent was owed after he repaired the hall following Hurricane Fabian
• The judge called the blockade “a spiteful and unworthy act”

Pastor Leroy Bean, head of Transfiguration Ministries in Bermuda, has won a long-running fight with the trustees of the Hamilton Parish Temperance Friendly Society over the building his congregation worships in, the Royal Gazette reported in March 2024. Assistant Justice Jeffrey Elkinson awarded him $900 a month for the 19 months the church was blocked by shipping containers, plus $4,000 in aggravated damages.

The building at the centre of the case is Temperance Hall on North Shore Road, a Grade 1 listed property conveyed to the society in 1852. Pastor Bean began leasing it for his ministry in April 2004. The trustees said the lease ran for ten years; the pastor said twenty. In July 2019 the trustees sued, seeking $153,000 in unpaid rent and possession of the hall.

Pastor Bean’s case was that the rent had been cut from $900 to $100 a month because he refurbished the building after Hurricane Fabian damaged it in 2003, and that he had taken on the exterior maintenance. The trustees called it a “bad bargain” made without proper approval, but a surveyor told the court the hurricane repairs needed no permits, and the judge accepted that exterior upkeep on a waterfront site would cost more than $100 a month. He upheld the 20-year lease and found no rent was owed.

The harshest words were kept for the containers. Trustee Lionel Raynor placed them across the church’s access, and after former Chief Justice Narinder Hargun ordered their removal in February 2023, Mr Raynor reportedly said he “would not be moving anything” and told the pastor: “Smile, little boy.” Although the trustees argued he acted alone, the court held them liable, describing the blockade as “an affront to the dignity and pride of Pastor Bean and his ministry, causing anxiety, inconvenience and distress.” Asked for comment, Pastor Bean said the judgment “speaks for itself.”

Many Jamaican congregations, at home and in the diaspora, worship in rented halls, lodges and old society buildings on handshake arrangements, and many have spent their own money repairing them after hurricanes. The Bermuda case shows how quickly that goodwill can sour, and how much rests on a written lease that states the term, the rent and who pays for repairs. A church that fixes a landlord’s roof without documenting the deal is investing in property it may not be able to keep.