KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

The find­ings of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent which caused po­lice con­sta­ble Grayson Ed­wards to lose his arm are now be­fore the South­ern Di­vi­sion po­lice le­gal team.


Giv­ing an up­date on the probe at Thurs­day’s T&T Po­lice Ser­vice week­ly me­dia brief­ing, Se­nior Supt Richard Smith said the team would de­cide what charges to lay against the dri­ver of the oth­er ve­hi­cle in­volved in the ac­ci­dent.

The con­sta­bles, Nicholas Lee, Grayson Ed­wards, Aki­no Clo­vis and Jesse St John, who are at­tached to the Court and Process Branch in Port-of-Spain, had just fin­ished du­ty at the FOC par­ty at the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um, Tarou­ba, on Au­gust 28 when the ac­ci­dent oc­curred.

As they left in a white Nis­san Car­a­van around 10.30 am, a gold Nis­san Ce­firo col­lid­ed with the maxi at the north en­trance to the sta­di­um along the Re­form Con­nec­tor Road. Both ve­hi­cles land­ed on the road­side, with Ed­wards and Nicholas pitch­ing out of the van.


Smith said Ed­wards re­ceived the most se­vere in­juries and sur­geons had to am­pu­tate his right arm. Lee suf­fered head and nerve in­juries and on­ly left the hos­pi­tal on Tues­day. For­tu­nate­ly, doc­tors dis­charged Clo­vis and St John hours af­ter the ac­ci­dent. They re­main at home re­cov­er­ing

“In­quiries con­tin­ue in­to that RTA, and the file is now in the pos­ses­sion of the le­gal of­fi­cers. A de­ci­sion will be made in the next two days on the charges to be made on the dri­ver of the oth­er ve­hi­cle,” Smith said.
 Re­call­ing the Au­gust 29 protest when scrap iron deal­ers dumped two mounds of sand across the Solomon Ho­choy High­way in Clax­ton Bay Smith said there is now a spe­cial op­er­a­tions team to deal with road­blocks.


“It caused traf­fic pile-up for miles, as well as peo­ple were not able to get to their work, to their homes, in a time­ly man­ner. We start­ed this unit, and we have al­so been ar­rest­ing per­sons who we find block­ing the road­way.”

He said while in­ves­ti­gat­ing the high­way protest, po­lice went to the home of a scrap iron deal­er and found a firearm, 15 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, just over TT$100,000, US$3000, and a quan­ti­ty of jew­ellery. The Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tion Branch seized the cash while po­lice charged the deal­er for il­le­gal pos­ses­sion of a firearm and am­mu­ni­tion. An in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the seized jew­ellery con­tin­ues.

He al­so re­port­ed that in­ves­ti­ga­tors ar­rest­ed and charged a for­mer St Paul’s An­gli­can Church em­ploy­ee, San Fer­nan­do, for 11 counts of sac­ri­leges at the San Fer­nan­do church.

Po­lice al­so ar­rest­ed a sus­pect for the rape, kid­nap­ping, griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault and rob­bery with vi­o­lence against a Venezue­lan mi­grant. The sus­pect is cur­rent­ly in re­mand at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison.

Two oth­er peo­ple are in cus­tody for ob­tain­ing mon­ey by false pre­tence af­ter steal­ing a 40-foot con­tain­er from a job site in Princes Town and sell­ing it to some­one else. It­i­ga­tors re­cov­ered the con­tain­er in St Mar­garet’s Vil­lage.