A Barbados Supreme Court jury has formally cleared ex-Goddard Enterprises sailor Walter Oneal Prescod of three separate drug counts tied to 121.4 kilograms of cannabis uncovered on the company’s yacht *Ecstasy*, bringing a definitive close to a high-profile legal saga that saturated national news headlines back in 2018. The sprawling case first unfolded in July 2018, when authorities arrested three individuals linked to the prominent Barbadian conglomerate: Prescod, then-Goddard Enterprises chairman Charles Herbert, and company director Christopher Rogers, all taken into custody following the drug seizure on the firm’s vessel. One full year after the initial arrests, the Director of Public Prosecutions opted to dismiss all charges against Herbert and Rogers, noting insufficient admissible evidence to move their cases forward, leaving Prescod to stand trial alone on three distinct offences: unlawful possession of cannabis within Barbadian territorial waters, unlicensed importation of the controlled substance, and possession of the 121.4kg haul for the explicit purpose of illicit trafficking. After the presiding judge delivered her full summation of the evidence to the panel in No. 4 Supreme Court, the jury deliberated for just over an hour before first notifying Justice Laurie-Ann Smith Bovell that they had not yet reached a unanimous verdict. Mere minutes later, the jurors returned to deliver a decisive 8-to-1 not-guilty ruling on every single charge against Prescod. As he exited the Supreme Court Complex wrapped in his wife’s embrace, Prescod declined to deliver a full public statement to assembled press, offering only a brief, heartfelt remark: “God is good. Have a Merry Christmas,” before flashing a thumbs-up gesture to gathered reporters. Lead defence counsel Sade Harris, who represented Prescod alongside fellow attorney Elan Greenidge, emphasized the team’s extensive preparation, stating “It was a lot of hard work but I believe that justice has prevailed in this matter.” During proceedings, the court heard initial statements Prescod gave to police shortly after his 2018 arrest, in which he initially claimed full responsibility for the cannabis, explaining he had arranged to smuggle the haul after travelling to Grenada, desperate for cash to cover costly cancer treatment for his unwell wife. He told investigators at the time that he had met a local contact in Grenada, who drove him to the dockyard where the *Ecstasy* was undergoing scheduled maintenance, and that the pair had moved four sugar sacks, one black bag and four taped packages of cannabis from the jeep to the yacht, stashing the haul adjacent to the vessel’s water tanks before he relocked the craft and left. In that initial police statement, Prescod had explicitly told officers that both Herbert and Rogers had no prior knowledge of the drugs being placed on the company yacht. The two former Goddard board members later testified as prosecution witnesses, repeating under oath that they had no awareness of the cannabis shipment, and flatly denied any allegation that they had offered Prescod job security in exchange for taking full blame for the smuggling operation. Choosing to deliver an unsworn dock statement rather than testify under cross-examination, Prescod later reversed his earlier self-incriminating account, telling the jury that the discovery of the massive cannabis haul had been a complete surprise to him. He explained that before any of the three men had been formally charged, they had been held in adjacent holding cells, where Rogers, in Herbert’s full presence, had urged him to take full legal responsibility for the drug find so that the two executives could return home quickly, promising to restore his job at Goddard Enterprises if he complied. Prescod added that he had agreed to the arrangement at the time because he was facing crippling medical bills for his wife’s cancer care, and believed the steady income from keeping his job would help him cover those urgent costs. The prosecution team for the case was led by Acting Director of Public Prosecutions Alliston Seale SC, working alongside Acting Senior State Counsel Paul Prescod.