Sacha Wil­son

Be­ing a school drop-out and il­lit­er­ate are no ex­cus­es for break­ing the law, says Jus­tice An­tho­ny Car­mona.

The judge ex­pressed this view as he sen­tenced 30-year-old Gar­ri­son Adams, of Moru­ga, to five years' im­pris­on­ment for pos­ses­sion of 20.5 kilo­grammes of mar­i­jua­na for the pur­pose of traf­fick­ing. Adams' at­tor­ney Mewahlal Cha­toor, in a stir­ring mit­i­ga­tion plea, said his client had left school in Form Two, lived in pover­ty and was il­lit­er­ate. Cha­toor al­so not­ed that there was a 30 per cent drop-out rate in the school sys­tem. Al­lud­ing to this, Car­mona said al­though pro­gres­sive strides con­tin­ued to be made in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, the is­sue of school drop-out was a se­ri­ous one.

Car­mona, in the San Fer­nan­do Sec­ond Crim­i­nal Court, said: "No child in T&T must be al­lowed to drop out of school...Par­ents must be held ac­count­able." The judge al­so not­ed that there was an en­dem­ic prob­lem of mar­i­jua­na cul­ti­va­tion and drug ad­dic­tion in Moru­ga. Very of­ten, he said, drug ad­dic­tion and traf­fick­ing re­sult in the spi­ralling crime rate in the coun­try. In de­ter­min­ing sen­tence, the judge said he con­sid­ered that Adams spent eight prison years await­ing tri­al be­cause he was un­able to se­cure bail. But, he said the sen­tence must re­flect the court's ab­hor­rence to such of­fences and as a de­ter­rence to would-be of­fend­ers. The judge com­mend­ed PC By­ron Lee and act­ing Cpl Leon Haynes for do­ing ex­cel­lent po­lice work.

The State's case, led by state at­tor­ney Mau­re­ceia Joseph, was that Lee, then as­signed to the Princes Town Po­lice Sta­tion, and oth­er of­fi­cers re­ceived in­for­ma­tion in No­vem­ber 2003. They went to Her­rera Street, Pe­nal Rock Road, Moru­ga, where they hid in some bush­es. Lee said he saw the ac­cused and an­oth­er man un­der an aban­doned house throw­ing mar­i­jua­na in large plas­tic bags. He said he knew the ac­cused three years be­fore that date. When the po­lice ran out, he said, the men ran in­to a cane­field and es­caped. The po­lice found five large plas­tic bags con­tain­ing the il­lic­it herb.