This country’s Senior Magistrate Rickie Burnett has made a strong and serious call to the head of the Traffic Branch of the local constabulary to ensure when police officers give evidence in the witness box to do so accurately and truthfully not relying on telling lies to have a conviction in Court.
His call came on Wednesday November 7th at the Kingstown Magistrate Court while presiding over traffic cases and was at the time dealing with a case where a mini-bus operator was being tried for breaching one of the traffic regulations here.
During the testimony a female traffic officer stated that the mini-bus operator came from the Sion Hill area and immediately turned around in the public road to pick up a passenger and at the time she was on duty at the bus stop.
However the bus operator pointed out that he saw two female officers were at the bus stop and it appeared that they were off-duty with handbags on their shoulders.
The female officer who gave him the case under cross examination denied having a hand-bag at the time while the other female officer when questioned about the handbag admitted that they both had their handbags.
The Senior Magistrate then stated that he cannot trust the evidence that was adduced by the officer which is very troubling and as a result he dismissed the case.
St Clair Charles
