Sascha Wil­son

A Rio Claro man on tri­al for mar­i­jua­na traf­fick­ing yes­ter­day claimed he was set up by the po­lice­man who charged him. Jef­frey Syd­ney, of San Pe­dro Road, Poole, is be­fore Jus­tice An­tho­ny Car­mona in the San Fer­nan­do First As­sizes charged with traf­fick­ing over one kilo­gramme of mar­i­jua­na. The of­fence al­leged­ly oc­curred around 4 am on No­vem­ber 3, 2000. Syd­ney's at­tor­ney Wilston Camp­bell, in cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, put to po­lice com­plainant Cpl Vin­cent Awong Cole that in 2000 he was in a re­la­tion­ship with Syd­ney's sis­ter Jes­si­ca. He charged that the po­lice­man had fab­ri­cat­ed the case against Syd­ney be­cause Syd­ney told his sis­ter he had seen Cole with oth­er women.

Camp­bell put to him: "My in­struc­tion is that the ac­cused used to see you with oth­er women at cer­tain places."

Deny­ing that he was court­ing Jes­si­ca, Cole al­so said: "I can­not say what he sees, sir." Camp­bell: "My in­struc­tions are that you were told by Jes­si­ca of the ob­ser­va­tions of Mr Jef­frey." Cole said he was not told any­thing. He said some­time af­ter 1983, he ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at Jes­si­ca's home, and ar­rest­ed her and her hus­band, for mar­i­jua­na traf­fick­ing. It was put to Cole that in 2000 he threat­ened to make sure that Syd­ney "make a jail." Cole re­spond­ed: "I nev­er told Mr Jef­frey that." He al­so de­nied mak­ing the same threat to Syd­ney at the Rio Claro Po­lice Sta­tion af­ter his ar­rest in De­cem­ber 2000. Cole said in 2008 he nev­er ex­e­cut­ed a search war­rant at Syd­ney's house, and nev­er ac­cused him of bring­ing in guns in­to the coun­try or ar­rest­ed him for ob­scene lan­guage.

Cole said he had known the ac­cused for 15 years be­fore the in­ci­dent. The State's case is that Cole was among oth­er of­fi­cers at a road­block ex­er­cise along Tabaquite Road, Jef­fers Cross­ing, when Syd­ney ap­proached in a sin­gle-cab pick-up van. On see­ing Cole, Syd­ney al­leged­ly sped off and a chase en­sued. Syd­ney al­leged­ly aban­doned the van in a dead-end street and ran in­to the bush­es. In­side the van were a two-year-old boy, two oth­er boys, aged 15 and 17, and more than one kilo­gramme of mar­i­jua­na, ac­cord­ing to the State's case. The State is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Jen­nifer Mar­tin, in­struct­ed by Chris Ram­lal. The mat­ter will con­tin­ue to­day.