Princes Town Mag­is­trate Rae Roopchan yes­ter­day de­clined to start the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in­volv­ing six po­lice of­fi­cers ac­cused of mur­der­ing friends Alana Dun­can, Abi­gail John­son and Ker­ron "Fin­gers" Ec­cles last Ju­ly. Roopchan, pre­sid­ing in the First Mag­is­trate's Court, told act­ing Cor­po­ral Khem­raj Sa­hadeo, Con­sta­bles An­to­nio Ramd­hin, Glen Singh, Roger Nicholas, Re­nal­do Rivero and Safraz Ju­man, all of whom are joint­ly charged with the mur­ders,he would not be­gin their mat­ter. "To em­bark on this type of pre­lim­i­nary In­quiry would be dif­fi­cult. It seems to be a very, very lengthy PI with a num­ber of wit­ness­es. Coun­sel can­not say it is not so. I do not want to take the chance to start it and make it a part-heard," Roopchan said. The mag­is­trate ex­plained he was not run­ning away or shirk­ing his re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. "The dif­fi­cul­ty with mak­ing it part-heard is you will have to find a court to con­tin­ue and we will be run­ning back and forth," he said. Roopchan is pre­sid­ing in the court for Au­gust while res­i­dent mag­is­trate De­bra Quin­tyne is on leave. The of­fi­cers, all of whom are mem­bers of the San Fer­nan­do Rob­bery Squad, have been charged with the fa­tal shoot­ing of the three peo­ple on Ju­ly 22, 2011 at Rochard Dou­glas Road, Bar­rack­pore. As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Ray­mond Craig, laid the charges. The three were killed in an al­leged shootout. A sev­enth of­fi­cer, Woman Con­sta­ble Nicole Clement, was ini­tial­ly charged with the killings.

How­ev­er, the charges were dropped against her when she turned state wit­ness. She was grant­ed im­mu­ni­ty in ex­change for her tes­ti­mo­ny. Clement faces a charge of at­tempt­ing to per­vert the course of jus­tice. Yes­ter­day Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, Roger Gas­pard, who is lead­ing the state's case, told Roopchan Quin­tyne in­formed at­tor­neys she would not be in court yes­ter­day. She told the de­fence if they want­ed they could ask the mag­is­trate in her place to start the mat­ter. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, he said, Quin­tyne set the mat­ter for Sep­tem­ber 11 for tri­al be­fore her. Roopchan said the ex­pla­na­tion was clear and ad­journed it to that date. Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan, who ap­peared for the of­fi­cers, said he was "anx­ious" to have the mat­ter start­ed. How­ev­er, he agreed to the Sep­tem­ber trail date, adding he hoped it would go day-to-day. Roopchan said the reg­u­lar ad­journ­ment date was Au­gust 27. Khan asked that the mat­ter be ad­journed to that date be­fore it went to Sep­tem­ber for tri­al to give the of­fi­cers some "air from the prison." Gas­pard said the pros­e­cu­tion was in a "po­si­tion to be­gin call­ing wit­ness­es this morn­ing (yes­ter­day)." Khan, in­struct­ed by Ce­leste Jules-St Louis and Ul­ric Sker­ritt, said he al­so was ready to start the mat­ter. Gas­pard, to­geth­er with?Se­nior Coun­sel Gilbert Pe­ter­son and Eileen Greene, are pros­e­cut­ing the of­fi­cers. Spe­cial se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments were put in place yes­ter­day at the cour­t­house for the mat­ter.