DPP instructs police to charge local lawyer – no action yet

Police are yet to bring charges against a local lawyer, although they have been instructed to do so by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).{{more}}

DPP Colin Williams told SEARCHLIGHT yesterday that, so far for the year, there have been three occasions on which he has referred matters to the police and they have not acted.

Williams said earlier this year, he instructed that charges be brought against a lawyer, who it is alleged issued a “bounced” cheque to a client, and allegedly withheld from a client money derived from the sale of the client’s property.

The DPP also spoke of the matter in which a police officer, suspected of incest and rape, was allowed to leave the state, without being charged.

On February 15, SEARCHLIGHT reported that a police officer, attached to Special Services Unit (SSU) of the police force, could not be located, when he was being sought by his law enforcement colleagues for questioning.

SEARCHLIGHT was reliably informed that during the last week of January, the man’s eight-year-old daughter was admitted to the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital, complaining of abdominal pains.

After being examined by doctors, tests performed on the child indicated that she had been infected with gonorrhoea, a sexually transmitted disease. According to our source, when questioned, the girl told medical personnel that her father was the person who had abused her.

The police officer was able to leave the state, despite regulations which specify that officers under the rank of sergeant must obtain written permission from the Commissioner of Police, to present to Immigration officials at the port of exit.

It is believed that the police officer is in the United States.

“The public would assume when they see this kind of behaviour, that with the fact that the police high command knew that [the police officer] was wanted for rape and incest and he left more than a week after this knowledge was within the police high command, that this would suggest that there was some complicity by the police to get [the police officer] to leave,” the DPP said.

“This is what the public would conclude,” Williams said.

“Why wasn’t the police officer charged, for example,” he said.

“The police have not acted on things like this, despite my instructions. This is just three incidents for the year, the lawyer, [the police officer] and now this matter,” Williams said, referring to the failure of the police to carry out his instructions to charge three police officers in relation to the shooting of Corporal Milford Edwards on December 5, 2012.

“How could we expect the common man to believe that they going to get justice, when you have the police high command rigidly refusing to carry out the instrucitons,” the DPP said.