Ak­ile Si­mon

Chief Mag­is­trate Sher­man Mc Nicolls has been slapped with a charge of per­mit­ting a po­lice of­fi­cer as­signed to the Spe­cial Branch Unit to dri­ve his ve­hi­cle with­out a valid cer­tifi­cate of in­sur­ance.

PC Si­mon, Mc Nicolls' dri­ver, was al­so charged with dri­ving a ve­hi­cle with­out a valid cer­tifi­cate of in­sur­ance. Both were charged via sum­mons­es un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle and In­sur­ance Act, Chap­ter 48:51 Sec­tion 3:1. Mc Nicolls is not the first pre­sid­ing mag­is­trate to be charged with a traf­fic of­fence.

Last No­vem­ber, Se­nior Mag­is­trate Jo-Anne Con­nor was be­fore Mc Nicolls in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court on three traf­fic charges. Con­nor was lat­er ac­quit­ted, af­ter Mc Nicolls ruled that the Trans­port of­fi­cer who laid the charges had no au­thor­i­ty un­der the law to do so.The in­for­ma­tion against Mc Nicolls and PC Si­mon was laid be­fore a Jus­tice of the Peace at the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court late Tues­day, mere days be­fore the statu­to­ry time frame for lay­ing the charges had ex­pired. Po­lice sources said they re­ceived in­struc­tions from the of­fice of act­ing Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Car­la Brown-An­toine to pre­fer the charges against the Chief Mag­is­trate and the of­fi­cer.

The file was first sub­mit­ted to head of the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion Snr Supt Paul Ro­driguez and lat­er sent to the DPP's of­fice for ad­vice. Af­ter the in­for­ma­tion was laid, in­ves­ti­ga­tors ob­tained sum­mons­es for Mc Nicolls and Si­mon to ap­pear be­fore Port-of-Spain Sixth Court Mag­is­trate Deb­bie Ann-Bas­saw on Sep­tem­ber 10. The pros­e­cu­tion claimed that on Feb­ru­ary 13, 2009, Mc Nicolls per­mit­ted Si­mon to dri­ve his Hilux van along the La­dy Young Road, Bel­mont.

The charges, po­lice said, stemmed from an ac­ci­dent in which a pick-up, dri­ven by a woman of Mt Hope, col­lid­ed with Mc Nicolls' ve­hi­cle. The woman lat­er made a re­port at Bel­mont Po­lice Sta­tion, while PC Si­mon re­port­ed the ac­ci­dent lat­er that night at Princes Town Po­lice Sta­tion. Po­lice sources said the sum­mons­es were not served on Mc Nicolls and Si­mon up to late yes­ter­day. Cpl Rakesh Ram­sook of the Bel­mont Po­lice in­ves­ti­gat­ed the mat­ter and laid the charges.

Flash­back?

On No­vem­ber 23, 2007, Se­nior Mag­is­trate Jo-Anne Con­nor was ac­quit­ted on three road traf­fic charges when she ap­peared in the Port-of-Spain Eight Mag­is­trates' Court be­fore Mc Nicolls. Mc Nicolls agreed with Con­nor's lead at­tor­ney, Dana See­ta­hal, SC, who ar­gued that Trans­port of­fi­cer George New­town had no pow­ers un­der the Mo­tor Ve­hi­cle and Road Traf­fic Act to lay charges. Con­nor had been charged with im­prop­er over­tak­ing, fail­ing to com­ply with traf­fic sig­nals and in­con­sid­er­ate dri­ving while pro­ceed­ing along the Au­drey Jef­fers High­way, Mu­cu­rapo, on June 10, 2006.