Derek Achong

A 38-year-old man from cen­tral Trinidad has been freed of rob­bing a se­cu­ri­ty guard of her firearm and bul­let­proof vest due to re­peat­ed de­lays in pros­e­cut­ing his case. 

Nigel Scott, of Munroe Road, Cunu­pia, was dis­charged on Tues­day af­ter High Court Mas­ter Shabi­ki Caz­abon up­held an ap­pli­ca­tion from his lawyer Bhi­mal Ma­hara­jh over the de­lay. 

Scott was ac­cused of rob­bing the guard at a su­per­mar­ket in Cara­pichaima where she worked on May 24, last year. 

The guard was on du­ty around 2 pm when she was con­front­ed by two men, who robbed her of her pis­tol, 25 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, her bul­let­proof vest and her cell­phone, which had a com­bined val­ue of $11,500. The men then emp­tied the su­per­mar­ket’s cash reg­is­ter be­fore es­cap­ing in a wait­ing ve­hi­cle. 

Scott was ar­rest­ed in late De­cem­ber and was charged with rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion af­ter the vic­tim al­leged­ly point­ed him out in an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rade. 

When Scott made his first court ap­pear­ance in ear­ly Jan­u­ary, this year, Mas­ter Caz­abon gave dead­lines for po­lice pros­e­cu­tors to file the in­dict­ment and wit­ness state­ments. She al­so sched­uled a suf­fi­cien­cy hear­ing for April 23. 

Pros­e­cu­tors ap­plied for and were grant­ed an ex­ten­sion be­fore the hear­ing, which was ad­journed to Oc­to­ber.  When the case came up for hear­ing again, Mas­ter Caz­abon grant­ed a fi­nal ex­ten­sion and set the suf­fi­cien­cy hear­ing for De­cem­ber 3. 

As pros­e­cu­tors had still not com­plied when the case came up for hear­ing on Tues­day, Ma­hara­jh ap­plied for his client to be dis­charged. Ma­hara­jh point­ed out that the non-com­pli­ance with the pre­vi­ous or­ders was in con­tra­ven­tion of the pro­vi­sions and in­tent of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings) Act (AJI­PA), which was pro­claimed in De­cem­ber, last year. 

The leg­is­la­tion seeks to re­duce pro­tract­ed de­lays in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem by re­plac­ing lengthy pre­lim­i­nary en­quiries be­fore Mag­is­trates with quick­er suf­fi­cien­cy hear­ings be­fore High Court Mas­ters. 

The In­dictable Pro­ceed­ings Act cou­pled with new Crim­i­nal Pro­ceed­ings Rules give ju­di­cial of­fi­cers the pow­er to im­pose sanc­tions for non-com­pli­ance with dead­lines and or­ders. 

Mas­ter Caz­abon agreed with Ma­hara­jh’s sub­mis­sions and up­held his ap­pli­ca­tion. 

This in­ci­dent comes two weeks af­ter sev­en of­fi­cers from the East­ern Di­vi­sion, charged with cor­rup­tion, were freed based on the fail­ure of the pros­e­cu­tion to meet court or­ders, present cru­cial ev­i­dence, and en­sure the at­ten­dance of key wit­ness­es.

That same week, an­oth­er five of­fi­cers walked free af­ter in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence against them as well as pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­steps and re­peat­ed non-com­pli­ance with pre­vi­ous court or­ders. 

The Po­lice Ser­vice lat­er re-laid charges against the first sev­en of­fi­cers.