ST JOHN’S – A High Court judge Friday upheld a no case submission filed on behalf of the former executive secretary of the Board of Education (BoE), D. Gisele Isaac, who had been charged on fraud related matters.
Queen Counsel Dean Hamilton had filed the no case submission before Justice Stanley John on the grounds that “there was not sufficient evidence for the case to be heard by a trial jury”.
“I must say that this is one of the best cases I have done and I haven’t done any trial since in 2005,” Hamilton told reporters, adding “I was very pleased to defend D. Giselle Isaac”.
He said that he had been provided with “some papers” by her counsel, Harold Lovell, who is also the leader of the main opposition Unity Progressive Party (UPP).
“When I read the papers I thought that she was dealt with unfairly, very unfairly,” he added.
Isaac, a former speaker of the House of Representatives here, had gone on trial on October 9, nearly five years after the state had alleged that she had illegally obtained EC$9 000 for Algernon “Serpent” Watts, a debt collector/bailiff from the BoE, which the Gaston Browne government insisted was higher than normal. Both Isaac and Watts were arrested in June 2015.
In addition, she was also charged with dishonestly applying EC$9 000 and fraudulently applying EC$13 983.97 cents for the benefit of Watts between February 2013 and March 2014.
“To hear that I did my job with integrity, with honour, with respect and regard to procedures and the law and that today is not a majority thing, there is no case, I did nothing wrong,” Isaac told reporters after emerging from the Court.
“There never was a case, I did nothing wrong and I will stand and secure in the knowledge . . . I did nothing wrong,” she added. (CMC)
