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Friday, July 25, 2025

Cops freed of robbery charges after delay in prosecuting case

by

Derek Achong
13 days ago
20250712
Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain.

Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain.

Three po­lice of­fi­cers have been freed of mul­ti­ple charges for al­leged­ly rob­bing two civil­ians, af­ter pro­longed de­lays in pros­e­cut­ing their case.

Ear­li­er this week, Dion Ot­t­ley, Ryan Gran­di­son, and Steve Williams were dis­charged by High Court Mas­ter Mar­garet Sookraj-Goswa­mi, who up­held an ap­pli­ca­tion filed by their le­gal team, led by Se­nior Coun­sel Kei­th Scot­land, over the con­duct of State pros­e­cu­tors.

The of­fi­cers were ini­tial­ly charged in ear­ly 2016, fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions that they robbed two men of cash and jew­ellery while armed with their ser­vice pis­tols.

All three were joint­ly charged with four counts of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, while Ot­t­ley faced two ad­di­tion­al charges for con­spir­ing to per­vert the course of jus­tice.

Their suf­fi­cien­cy hear­ing un­der the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act (AJI­PA) had been re­peat­ed­ly ad­journed over the years, as pros­e­cu­tors cit­ed is­sues with the in­dict­ments and chal­lenges in se­cur­ing key wit­ness­es.

In a last-minute de­vel­op­ment be­fore this week’s sched­uled hear­ing, State pros­e­cu­tors emailed the court stat­ing they could not at­tend and were still un­pre­pared to pro­ceed with the case, which was meant to de­ter­mine whether there was suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence for the of­fi­cers to stand tri­al.

Scot­land ap­plied for the of­fi­cers to be dis­charged un­der AJI­PA pro­vi­sions, an ap­pli­ca­tion Mas­ter Sookraj-Goswa­mi grant­ed, rul­ing that the State’s ex­pla­na­tion for the de­lays was un­ac­cept­able.

The of­fi­cers were al­so rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Asha Watkins-Montserin and Sarah Car­raz.


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