PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – A High court judge on Monday ordered that three senior police officers appear in court to explain the circumstances under which two Barbadian fishermen were released without charges after being caught fishing illegally in Trinidad and Tobago’s territorial waters in 2004.
On Monday Justice James Aboud, presiding in the San Fernando Civil Court, granted Kamla Persad-Bissessar and United National Congress councillor Carol Cuffy-Dowlat leave to cross-examine Assistant Superintendent Maurice Dillion, Sergeant Fitzroy Gray and police prosecutor Corporal John Morrison.
On February 9, 2004 Corporal Morrison had informed the presiding magistrate in the Scarborough Magistrates’ Court that he would offer no evidence against Barbadian fishermen Joseph Mason and Samuel Firebrace.
Persad-Bissessar and Cuffy-Dowlat had filed for judicial review on behalf of Point Fortin resident Susan Charleau, challenging the Commissioner of Police over the decision of a police prosecutor and constable to offer no evidence against the fishermen arrested for fishing in Tobago waters.
Justice Aboud, in his decision to grant leave for judicial review, said he considered that ASP Dillion “omitted to give a complete account of his conversation with the caller (who contacted the Scarborough police over the matter) and Sgt Gray. His memory with the caller might be resuscitated under cross-examination.”
The matter has been adjourned for a case management hearing on September 21.
Persad-Bissessar, said she was pleased with the judgement and that “It is a step in the right direction. This has been a case that has excited the nation for quite a while.”
Justice Aboud, in his 22-page ruling, said “cross-examination may have the effect of loosening the restraints that time has placed on memory of these three (officers) and, if, that occurs, the trial court will be a better place to adjudicate the matter, because its view of the events will be panoramic.” The judge said the affidavit evidence of the officers “is not always consistent.”
Sgt Gray, in his affidavit, repeated a number of things allegedly told to him by ASP Dillion, which Dillion does not state in his affidavit.
Gray, the judge said, stated in the affidavit that Dillion told him a caller claiming to be an official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the matter with the fisherman is a “sensitive one.”
In addition, Gray had said his senior told him the official said the matter should be treated gently and not be allowed to escalate further.
The judge said: “I do not view the application for leave to cross examine as a fishing exercise. The fish has already been presented, (which is to say that the two fishermen were released in circumstances that have been called into question.) The respondents (the officers) must explain how it was ‘caught’.”
Aboud also added that they (the state, which is represented by Russell Martineau SC and Merle Dennis) must “fully disclose the process or the reasoning that was used. I would say that it has a duty to do so.”
He said in cases where defendants in a matter use “language sparingly or ingeniously, in a manner designed not to provide a full and complete account of an event or events and each (defendant’s) account contains omissions, whether as a result of poor memory, ingeniousness or otherwise, the court will be left in doubt as to the true state of affairs.”