Browne distances himself from Williams’ statement

Senior Magistrate Donald Browne has distanced himself from statements made by veteran lawyer Arthur Williams earlier this week.{{more}}

Browne was among more than 200 persons present at the House of Assembly on Tuesday, May 17, where Williams, a former Attorney General, was one of the speakers at a ceremony to mark the hand over of the revised edition of the laws of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

During his extended remarks, Williams endorsed the decision by Police Commissioner Keith Miller to reinstate three convicted police officers to the force.

The men were found guilty by Browne of assault of Jemark Jackson who was then 15 years old.

It was testified in court that on November 18, 2008, Corporal Kasankie Quow, along with Constables Osrick James and Hadley Ballantyne, beat Jackson with a hose and slammed him on the floor while in the general office of the Criminal Investigations Department. Jackson was then taken to the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital and placed in the Intensive Care Unit where he remained in a coma for seven days.

The officers, who were represented by Arthur Williams, were each fined EC$1,500 by Browne.

Williams defended Miller’s decision to invoke Cap 280, section 25 of the Police Act to reinstate the men, who now have criminal records, back on the force.

“When the law gives you discretion and the person who has the discretion exercises this discretion, you can’t blame the person who exercises the discretion which the law gives them!” Williams said.

He remarked that the victim (Jackson) had no bruises or scars; however, during the trial, a doctor testified that Jackson would have died had he not received medical attention immediately.

Referring to Browne, Williams said: “When the magistrate convicted them, you know what he say? ‘Go back to your work.’ That’s what he said; he said ‘Go back to your work.’”

“When Mr. Miller exercised his discretion to put the people back to work, having regarded the fact that the magistrate tell them to go back to work, how you could criticize? Criticize him for what?”

Speaking to SEARCHLIGHT at the end of the ceremony, Browne indicated that the statement made by Williams was not his, saying “You all (SEARCHLIGHT) have written what I have said.”

At the February 5, 2010, sentencing of the men, Browne indicated that he was disappointed with the officers, since “Jackson never did the police anything….”

He also reasoned that the men had “overstepped their boundaries, abused their power and were over zealous in their execution of the duties.”

“This magistrate would not even dream of sending you to jail, but I have to fine them… I have no other recourse than to find the defendants guilty of assaulting Jemark Jackson,” Browne had said back in February 2010.

Other statements made by Browne during the sentencing:

“No one seems to know what happened to Jemark. Well, if so, Jemark has to be very clever and has a vivid imagination to have said all this.

“Why did the officers take it upon themselves to hold on to a 15-year-old boy and abuse him like this? Is it because he is a bad egg?”

At no time is it documented that Browne ordered the men to return to their posts as police officers.

Late last month, the men were reinstated to the posts they held prior to their arrests and convictions.

In defending his decision, Commissioner Miller, in an interview, described the officers as good men who made mistakes, and said that he trusted them, despite them lying to their superiors and under oath.

The reinstatement of the officers has come under fire by some in the legal profession, political arena and the general public.