Fran­cis Joseph

A 20-year-old sol­dier was ac­quit­ted of a charge of caus­ing death by dan­ger­ous dri­ving. Dario Pran, of Dins­ley Road, Tacarigua, was dis­charged af­ter Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicolls, pre­sid­ing in the Port-of-Spain Eighth Mag­is­trates' Court, up­held a no-case sub­mis­sion by at­tor­ney, Daniel Khan.

It was al­leged that Pran caused the death of an­oth­er sol­dier, Pri­vate Sean Mar­tin, the son of State pros­e­cu­tor, Jen­nifer Mar­tin, by knock­ing him down on the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route, Mount Hope, on Oc­to­ber 12, 2008. The State was rep­re­sent­ed by pros­e­cu­tor, Kathy-Ann Wa­ter­man-Latchoo. In his sub­mis­sions, Khan said the State had not made out a pri­ma fa­cie case of death by dan­ger­ous dri­ving. He said the de­scrip­tion giv­en by the wit­ness that the car was sway­ing from shoul­der to the mid­dle of the road, was not ev­i­dence of dan­ger­ous dri­ving. Khan said there was no ev­i­dence that the death car was on the shoul­der of the road. He said the wit­ness nev­er said that the car was sway­ing on the point of im­pact.

Khan al­so sub­mit­ted that the ev­i­dence of the main wit­ness was so man­i­fest­ly un­re­li­able that no ju­ry could prop­er­ly con­vict on it. Mc Nicolls said the State had failed to es­tab­lish a pri­ma fa­cie case. He said the ev­i­dence ad­duced was so dis­cred­it­ed as a re­sult of cross-ex­am­i­na­tion that no prop­er­ly di­rect­ed ju­ry could con­vict on it. Af­ter Pran was dis­charged, Khan said his client want­ed to ex­press his con­do­lences to the Mar­tin fam­i­ly, but main­tained his po­si­tion that the death was not as a re­sult of his ac­tions. The pros­e­cu­tion de­pend­ed on the tes­ti­mo­ny of the sole eye­wit­ness, Kim­ber­ly Mitchell. She stat­ed that on the day in ques­tion, she was seat­ed in the back seat of a maxi taxi which was trav­el­ling along the Bus Route. She said on reach­ing the traf­fic lights at Mount Hope, she ob­served a car give the maxi taxi "a bad dri­ve".

She looked through the glass of the maxi and saw the car sway­ing. The car, she added, then hit Mar­tin who was at the time chang­ing a tyre on his car. Mitchell said she then saw the car dri­ve off. Mar­tin was lat­er found dead and the po­lice were con­tact­ed. She at­tend­ed an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade, but nev­er point­ed out Pran. The in­ves­ti­ga­tor stat­ed that he vis­it­ed Pran at hos­pi­tal where he cau­tioned him and told him of the in­ves­ti­ga­tions. The ac­cused re­spond­ed: "Boss, I don't know what you talk­ing about, I cah re­mem­ber what hap­pen when I was dri­ving the car."