A HIGH COURT JUDGE has described the police handling of a gun and ammunition case as disgraceful and has vowed that she will be expressing her displeasure in writing to the top cop and the Police Complaints Authority.
Madame Justice Maureen Crane-Scott’s strong words came as a doctor’s notes revealed severe new bruises to Nybingi Greene’s abdomen, even though police diary entries said he had no complaints or had made no reports of brutality while he was in custody.
This, said the judge, cast Greene’s alleged voluntary confession statement and those diary entries in a totally different light.
“I will be writing the Commissioner and the Police Complaints Authority about this matter. This is disgraceful,” the judge said.
However, the investigating lawmen’s woes do not end there because Greene’s lawyer has indicated he will be suing the police involved in the case.
Attorney Arthur Holder later told the SATURDAY SUN that he would be filing suits against the police as early as next week.
Greene, 28, of Dunlow Lane, Bay Street, St. Michael, was on trial in the No. 2 Supreme Court, having been accused of having a .38-calibre revolver and six rounds of .38-calibre cartridges in his possession on May 11, 2008.
He had pleaded not guilty and was represented by attorney Arthur Holder, while Senior Crown Counsel Roy Hurley prosecuted.
Holder had contested the validity of that written statement, saying it had been induced by force while Greene, in his defence, said he had been “beaten badly” by the police.
Dr Ross Herbert testified yesterday that when he examined Greene the same night he was taken into custody, he found bruises all over Greene’s front abdominal wall.
He said he knew when bruises were old by their colour and those on Greene looked like they had happened “within a 24 hour period.”
“I can’t pinpoint it down to a specific time but the ones I saw looked fresh to me,” he said.
However, entries from the station diary, which were read into evidence on Thursday, said when police checked on Greene, he made no complaints and indicated all was well.
In addition, the first entry in the station diary, relating to Greene, said that lawmen arrived at Hastings station with him after he was arrested, while riding along Bay Street, for having a gun in his possession.
However, lawmen who testified in the trial, said when they stopped Greene on Bay Street, they only found drugs on him. It was when they searched him at the station that they found the gun in his pocket.
Yesterday Madame Justice Crane-Scott referred to both those pieces of evidence and said the diary then had Greene leaving the station, for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, with nothing in the diary to say why he was leaving.
“We have him carried away in a police vehicle where all of sudden a man, who knows nothing about anything in connection with this matter, independently gives evidence that this man has been punched in the stomach, blunt force trauma consistent with fists,” the judge said.
“And therefore all those entries, would you not say, are suspect?” Justice Crane-Scott asked.
“On that type of evidence can this court really say that that statement was voluntary? I don’t know,” the judge said, who later refused to admit the statement and instructed the jury to return not guilty verdicts against Greene.

Share your thoughts

Please sign in or register to post your comments.

Page 1 of 1 pages

Page 1 of 1 pages

Recent Comments

Latest Videos

Quick Poll

Daily Cartoons