A 34-year-old po­lice of­fi­cer, charged with the mur­ders of a broth­er and sis­ter and wound­ing their rel­a­tive in an in­ci­dent in the carpark of Courts Mega­s­tore in San Juan in De­cem­ber last year, has been re­leased on bail. 

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion yes­ter­day, High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds grant­ed $500,000 to PC Sid­ney Roberts, who had been on re­mand since be­ing charged weeks af­ter the in­ci­dent. 

As part of his bail con­di­tions, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds or­dered him to sur­ren­der his pass­port and barred him from us­ing a firearm while his case was still pend­ing. 

He was al­so or­dered to re­port to the Va­len­cia Po­lice Sta­tion twice week­ly. 

Roberts is ac­cused of mur­der­ing Sime­on Lessey, 33, and his 35-year-old sis­ter, Sini­aya Lessey-Baird, on De­cem­ber 17 last year. 

He is al­so charged with shoot­ing the sib­lings’ friend Nathan Pierre. Two oth­er friends of the sib­lings were al­so wound­ed but Roberts was not charged in re­la­tion to them.

Uni­com­er (Trinidad) Lim­it­ed, the par­ent com­pa­ny of Courts Trinidad Ltd, dis­tanced it­self from the in­ci­dent as it claimed that it was the out­come of a “pri­vate fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tion” that took place on its com­pound with­out its knowl­edge or ap­proval.

Roberts was charged af­ter the in­ci­dent was in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA). 

State pros­e­cu­tor In­di­ra Chinebas did not ob­ject to bail for Roberts but re­quest­ed that it be set at $3 mil­lion with the con­di­tions that were even­tu­al­ly in­cor­po­rat­ed by Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds. 

Roberts’ lawyers led by Ul­ric Sker­ritt chal­lenged the po­si­tion as they sug­gest­ed that bail should be a frac­tion of the fig­ure sug­gest­ed. 

Sker­ritt point­ed out that pri­or to be­ing charged, his client had an un­blem­ished record and was as­signed to the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions. 

He al­so took is­sue with the strength of the case against his client as he point­ed out that there was ev­i­dence that he may have been act­ing in self-de­fence. 

Sker­ritt al­so claimed that Roberts, who has two young chil­dren and whose wife is eight months preg­nant, would have is­sues ac­cess­ing the bail sug­gest­ed by Chinebas. 

“It is trite law that one of the fun­da­men­tal pur­pos­es of bail/sure­ty is en­sur­ing that the Ap­pli­cant ap­pears for his tri­al. There is no ev­i­dence to sug­gest oth­er­wise,” Sker­ritt said. 

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Lessey-Baird’s hus­band, Ka­reem Baird, said that he was shocked that Roberts would be grant­ed bail so quick­ly. 

“Mul­ti­ple peo­ple are af­fect­ed and here he is walk­ing the streets again. What’s next? Is the case go­ing to go silent for years?” he asked.

He al­so ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that his views and those of the oth­er vic­tims’ rel­a­tives were not so­licit­ed. 

“The rights of the vic­tims does not mat­ter. Where are the peo­ple who are still griev­ing be­cause I lost the bread­win­ner in my fam­i­ly and my three-year-old son lost his mum,” he said. 

Baird added that he and his son are yet to re­cov­er from his wife’s death. He claimed that he has been un­able to muster the strength to re­turn to his church, which he serves as its bish­op. 

“The past six months have been hor­ri­ble for my fam­i­ly. The last en­joy­able day of my life would be the 16th of De­cem­ber 2023,” he said. 

“I have not been even liv­ing day by day. It is re­al­ly sec­ond by sec­ond,” he added. 

Roberts is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by James Caruth and Aris­sa Ma­haraj.