Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard must be con­grat­u­lat­ed for step­ping in­to the breach to ex­pe­dite the in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the deaths of moth­er Haydee Paul and her two daugh­ters along the Beetham High­way in Sea Lots in late Feb­ru­ary.Un­for­tu­nate­ly, more than sev­en weeks lat­er, the in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to how a mo­tor ve­hi­cle dri­ven by a po­lice of­fi­cer slammed in­to the moth­er and her daugh­ters, sev­en and eight years old, has not been com­plet­ed.

Gas­pard is cor­rect in un­der­stand­ing "the pub­lic dis­qui­et since this mat­ter in­volves the deaths of three per­sons, in­clud­ing two chil­dren, on the one side and a po­lice of­fi­cer on the oth­er side." His con­cern is war­rant­ed, since the fact of a po­lice of­fi­cer be­ing in­volved has drawn ex­pres­sions of con­cern and charges that there will be a "cov­er-up" by the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

Ac­cord­ing to the DPP, he vis­it­ed the scene of the ac­ci­dent on Mon­day last in the com­pa­ny of Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mervyn Richard­son and po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tor in the mat­ter, Supt Moses Charles. As a re­sult of that vis­it, the DPP said he "gave cer­tain ad­vice with a view to ty­ing up loose ends."

The DPP added that the in­ves­ti­ga­tor is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to­day, Thurs­day, so as to be a in po­si­tion to pro­vide him with a few more de­tails on the case, and that will place the DPP in a po­si­tion to make a de­ci­sion on whether to go ahead "one way or the oth­er with the mat­ter."The log­i­cal as­sump­tion is that ei­ther there will be suf­fi­cient grounds for charges to be laid or that per­son or per­sons will be cleared from any pos­si­ble wrong do­ing.

Again, the DPP is ab­solute­ly right that the need is for the quick­en­ing of in­ves­ti­ga­tions, as se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions and sus­pi­cions are "hang­ing over the head of the dri­ver of the ve­hi­cle and for his sake as well as the fam­i­lies of the de­ceased and in­jured per­sons, a speedy and ex­pe­di­tious res­o­lu­tion of the mat­ter must be sought."

But not on­ly the DPP has be­come dis­com­fit­ed by the time lapse. Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty chair­man, at­tor­ney Gillian Lucky, has al­so won­dered at the time that has been tak­en to com­plete the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.In­deed, so tense the sit­u­a­tion has be­come that on Mon­day, armed po­lice of­fi­cers were post­ed in the Sea Lots area in an­tic­i­pa­tion of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an­oth­er ma­jor protest by the res­i­dents about the de­lay in the in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Of­ten it is not suf­fi­cient­ly con­sid­ered the con­se­quences of de­lays in pro­vid­ing jus­tice both be­fore mat­ters get to the courts and when they get there. What hap­pens in such sit­u­a­tions of de­lay is un­want­ed ag­i­ta­tion and sus­pi­cion.How­ev­er, it must al­so be not­ed that it would seem strange that Gas­pard, af­ter one vis­it, on­ly needs a bit more in­for­ma­tion from the of­fi­cers prob­ing the case to make his own de­ter­mi­na­tion of the way for­ward.

Hope­ful­ly, the DPP's in­put will lead to a con­clu­sion that all can feel com­fort­able with giv­en the cir­cum­stances of the case. The old max­ims of "jus­tice de­layed is jus­tice de­nied," and the need for "jus­tice to be seen to be done" sure­ly ap­ply in this in­stance.