Derek Achong

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing four friends who were se­ri­ous­ly in­jured in an ac­ci­dent dur­ing a cir­cuit rac­ing event in Waller­field last month, are call­ing on act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Harold Phillip to ex­plain why the ve­hi­cle in­volved in the in­ci­dent was not im­pound­ed by po­lice.

In a let­ter to Phillip yes­ter­day, lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Kevesh Sookhan, Jynelle Ma­haraj, Am­ri­ka Arm­strong and Tri­cia Per­sad claimed that the fail­ure of in­ves­ti­ga­tors to seize and ex­am­ine the ve­hi­cle is now ham­per­ing their abil­i­ty to take pos­si­ble le­gal ac­tion against the event's or­gan­is­er.

"To our ut­ter con­ster­na­tion, we have been re­li­ably in­formed that the ve­hi­cle which col­lid­ed with the spec­ta­tors at the event has to date not been im­pound­ed by the po­lice or sent for foren­sic test­ing to de­ter­mine its wor­thi­ness or me­chan­i­cal in­tegri­ty.

"We con­sid­er this a se­ri­ous er­ror, if not a dere­lic­tion of du­ty on the part of the po­lice," their lawyer Nizam Saladeen said.

Saladeen al­so ques­tioned whether po­lice had in­spect­ed the tyre bar­ri­ers which the car broke through be­fore col­lid­ing with the four friends dur­ing the Caribbean Mo­tor Rac­ing Cham­pi­onship at the Frankie Boodram In­ter­na­tion­al Race­way on Ju­ly 24.

"In par­tic­u­lar, we have been in­struct­ed that tyres placed in cer­tain parts of the perime­ter of the cir­cuit were not af­fixed or ad­e­quate­ly af­fixed, there­by fail­ing to pro­vide suf­fi­cient im­ped­i­ment to the ve­hi­cle which ran off the cir­cuit and caused in­jury to our clients.

"It is a source of grave con­cern to our clients and their le­gal ad­vi­sors that such bar­ri­ers could be the sub­ject of tam­per­ing to the in­tent that cer­tain un­scrupu­lous per­sons may at­tempt to ef­fect ex-post fac­to re­pair up­on them," Saladeen said, as he called up­on Phillip to in­ter­vene and ad­dress their is­sues.

The T&T Guardian un­der­stands that Saladeen had not re­ceived a re­sponse up to late yes­ter­day.

Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, dur­ing the last race of the event, dri­ver David Lyons lost con­trol of his ve­hi­cle around a hair­pin turn.

Lyons' car crashed through the tyre bar­ri­ers and was cat­a­pult­ed in­to the stand where the friends were seat­ed in the bleach­ers.

Lyons and the four friends were se­ri­ous­ly in­jured, with some suf­fer­ing in­ter­nal in­juries and oth­er bro­ken bones. They have since been dis­charged from hos­pi­tal.

The friends are al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Kelvin Ramkissoon and Leon Kalicha­ran.