Jensen La Vende
High Court Judge Nalini Singh dismissed kidnapping and robbery charges against a taxi driver last Tuesday, after she found the State had erred in a procedural matter.
In her 27-page judgment on October 14, Singh dismissed the charges against Don Crichlow for kidnapping and robbery with aggravation, citing serious procedural flaws in the police’s identification process.
Crichlow was accused of robbing an 87-year-old woman, after allegedly picking her up in a white Tiida taxi in Princes Town on August 10, 2021. The case hinged entirely on the woman’s identification of Crichlow during a confrontation-based procedure conducted a month after the incident at the San Fernando Police Station on September 8.
Singh ruled that the confrontation-based identification was “inherently suggestive” and failed to meet the legal standards required for admissibility. The accused was the only person presented to the witness, viewed through a one-way mirror, in what the judge described as a “one-man identification parade.”
“Difficulty in arranging a fair identification procedure does not justify adopting an unfair one,” Singh stated, adding, “If a proper parade is hard to organise, the police must either keep trying or use a lawful alternative that preserves the reliability of identification evidence.”
The judge emphasised that the confrontation lacked the required safeguards of a formal identification parade and was not justified by the pandemic, which police cited as the reason for not sourcing suitable participants.
“Mere difficulty or inconvenience is not rare and exceptional,” Singh wrote. “The record shows only a generalised challenge in getting ‘dark-skinned, medium-built men with short black hair’ during the pandemic. That assertion, without more, falls well short of the threshold the authorities contemplate.”
The victim, an elderly woman, alleged that she was picked up by two men in a white Tiida, driven to a remote area, and robbed of cash and jewellery. She later identified Crichlow as the driver.
Singh found that the identification was made under stressful conditions and after a significant delay, which could have impaired the witness’s memory.
“The observation occurred in apparently favourable physical conditions, but the state of mind of the eyewitness and the passage of time render the identification inherently weak,” Singh noted.
She added that while Crichlow admitted to having access to a white Tiida on the day of the alleged offence, there was no forensic evidence, CCTV footage, or recovery of stolen items linking him to the crime.
“Driving a white Tiida somewhere in Trinidad on the same day that these offences are alleged to have occurred is insufficient to sustain the indictment. The law requires more than a model-match; it requires a probative linkage from the accused to the actus reus of the kidnapping and robbery.”
Markus Isaac represented Crichlow while the State was represented by Maria Lyons-Edwards, Cassie Bisram, and Afeisha Williams.
