Leah So­rias

Wit­ty com­ments, fre­quent ob­jec­tions and the pro­longed cross-ex­am­i­na­tion of a de­fence wit­ness, yes­ter­day dragged the traf­fic case against Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicolls to more than three hours.

In the end the rul­ing in the no-case sub­mis­sion, which was ex­pect­ed to be giv­en yes­ter­day, was ad­journed to an­oth­er day–Oc­to­ber 19. Mc Nicolls and his dri­ver/body­guard PC Sean Si­mon reap­peared be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate Lu­ci­na Car­de­nas-Ra­goo­nanan in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trate's Fourth Court yes­ter­day. Mc Nicolls is charged with per­mit­ting Si­mon to dri­ve his (Mc Nicolls') Hilux with­out a valid cer­tifi­cate of in­sur­ance. Si­mon is al­so charged with dri­ving the ve­hi­cle with­out valid in­sur­ance. Se­nior Coun­sel Is­rael Khan and Ian Ben­jamin rep­re­sent both men. The hear­ing start­ed at 10.30 am with Ya­coob Ali, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Cap­i­tal In­sur­ance be­ing called as a de­fence wit­ness. He point­ed out that sev­er­al of Mc Nicolls' ve­hi­cles were in­sured with his com­pa­ny.

Ques­tioned by Khan, Ali said he had more than 20 years ex­pe­ri­ence in the in­sur­ance busi­ness. He said ac­cord­ing to com­pa­ny pro­ce­dure, when an in­sur­ance pol­i­cy ex­pired, the pol­i­cy hold­er would be con­tact­ed re­gard­ing pay­ment. He said Mc Nicolls was con­tact­ed, but the com­pa­ny was told he was out of the coun­try. "When the ac­ci­dent oc­curred I asked (staff) what had hap­pened and I was told that they were wait­ing to is­sue a cer­tifi­cate but Mc Nicolls was not here," Ali said. Un­der cross-ex­am­i­na­tion from State pros­e­cu­tor Renu­ka Ramb­ha­gan he not­ed that at the time of the ac­ci­dent Mc Nicolls had no valid cer­tifi­cate of in­sur­ance. He said al­though there was an arrange­ment for a au­to­mat­ic re­new­al of Mc Nicolls' pol­i­cy, this arrange­ment was not stat­ed on the cer­tifi­cate of in­sur­ance.

He said au­to­mat­ic re­new­al was a spe­cial priv­i­lege which Mc Nicolls re­quest­ed ver­bal­ly. Sev­er­al times dur­ing the hear­ing Khan re­marked that Ramb­ha­gan was ask­ing ques­tions on­ly a law stu­dent should. Ben­jamin fre­quent­ly ob­ject­ed to the at­tor­ney's ques­tions as well. Ramb­ha­gan re­spond­ed sar­cas­ti­cal­ly that Khan taught her at law school and she was car­ry­ing out her du­ty as she was taught. The hear­ing was com­plet­ed short­ly af­ter 1.30 pm.

The charge

The charges against Mc Nicolls and Si­mon stemmed from an al­leged ac­ci­dent that oc­curred on the La­dy Young Road, Bel­mont, on Feb­ru­ary 20, in which a ve­hi­cle dri­ven by a Mt Hope woman col­lid­ed with Mc Nicolls' Toy­ota Hilux. The woman re­port­ed the ac­ci­dent to the Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion while Si­mon made a re­port to the Princes Town Po­lice Sta­tion lat­er that night.