Tuesday February 9th, 2010
- Last update:10 hours 20 min ago
Prosecutor: Mc Nicolls’ insurance wasn’t valid
Published: 30 Sep 2009
A State prosecutor has stated that Chief Magistrate Sherman Mc Nicolls did not have a valid certificate of insurance when his vehicle was involved in an accident on the Lady Young Road, Belmont, earlier this year.
Renuka Rambhajan was responding to a no-case submission by Mc Nicoll’s attorney Isarel Khan, SC, when the matter came up for hearing in the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court yesterday. The matter is being heard before Senior Magistrate Lucina Cardenas-Ragoonanan in the Port-of-Spain Fourth Court. Mc Nicolls is charged with permitting his bodyguard PC Sean Simon to drive his (Mc Nicolls’) vehicle without a valid certificate of insurance.
Simon was also charged with driving the vehicle without valid insurance.
Rambhajan said at the time of the accident the Mc Nicolls’ driver did not possess a certificate of insurance. She said even though Capital Insurance issued a letter stating the vehicle was covered at the time since there was an automatic renewal, the automatic renewal never existed. “It was not effectively done, because the hour of the issue was 2.25 pm, and at 11.25 am, he (Mc Nicolls) was asked to produce a certificate of insurance (after the accident) and he could not do so,” Rambhajan said. The State prosecutor said, “If the ‘automatic’ renewal existed, a certificate would have been dated on December 21, 2008, (when the insurance expired) and not on February, 20, 2009, hours after the accident took place.”
She said there was no indication of the automatic renewal on the certificate and any special circumstances must be clearly stated.
Rambhajan said even though there might have been an (automatic renewal) agreement between Mc Nicolls and Capital Insurance, Mc Nicolls did not go to the company and “firm up” the arrangements which would have effected the insurance. She argued, “We are hearing for the first time that he was out of the country at the time (the insurance expired). There must be a valid offer and acceptance, and silence is not an indication of accepting. “There was a condition to be met, which Mc Nicolls did not meet. No positive act was put forward on the part of the defendant, even up to this stage to state the automatic renewal took place.”
Rambhajan said a contract of insurance which may exist, although the state believed it did not, does not equate to a policy. She concluded that a prima facie case had been made out against the defendant and the onus was on him to show that he had a valid certificate of insurance. Cardenas-Ragoonanan would rule on the submissions next Tuesday. Cpl Rakesh Ramsook, the officer who charged Mc Nicolls and Simon and PC Ian Ramroop have already given evidence in the matter.
Flashback
The charges against them stemmed from an alleged accident that occurred on the Lady Young Road, Belmont, on February 20, in which a vehicle driven by a Mt Hope woman collided with Mc Nicolls’ Toyota Hilux. The woman reported the accident to the Belmont Police Station while Simon made a report to the Princes Town Police Station later that night.
Capital, Presidential and a
Capital, Presidential and a few others are the companies that giving the Insurance industry a bad name.
Okay Mr McNichols, so you big and bad and can pay a bare minimum on your insurance premium, just to say that you're insured, but do the right thing nah man. I pity the police officers who were a no show in court. They were probably seeing their careers go up in smoke, had they appeared in court.
http://dsaltsman.blogspot.com/
ONE LAW FOR THE RICH
ONE LAW FOR THE RICH -
There is one law for the rich and well connected one law for the poor. If it was any one else he might be in jail already. I know of an elderly gentleman who did not have his permit and spent the night in jail.
Or maybe is a case of one
Or maybe is a case of one law for the big boys and one law for everybody else, when you are one of the PM's co-conspirators why would you need a little thing like insurance.
.....ah yes....some serious
.....ah yes....some serious pondering on the part of Lucinda....searching for the dotting of i's and the crossing of t's, probably ending in a Franklyn Khan type conclusion.....
He is currently before the
He is currently before the courts on – driving without and failure to produce a valid certificate of insurance. Oh I forget: he is charged with permitting a duncey to drive his vehicle without insurance!
If any of us lesser mortals do so, we’d feel the brunt of the magistrates’ anger. Not so Shermie.
Now, clearly, according to the State Prosecutor (she deserves Capital Letters) Renuka Rambhajan, Shermie has been driving or being driven illegally:
Section 4(8) of the Motor Vehicles Insurance Act Ch 48:51, insurance policies were not given any effect under law, unless there was an issued certificate of insurance.
This directly refutes Shermie’s (and Israel Khan's) bovine reasoning that his insurance is one of automatic renewal.
It seems also that Shermie has been driving for months without this insurance.
2 months, Shermie! 2 months!
I wrote before that when Shermie failed to report to a police station until much later in the day, it was because he was hurriedly trying to pay his insurance before going in to report the accident.
By the way, notice that the new certificate is dated February 20, 2009. It is important to note 2 things:
1. What is the date the new insurance policy terminates? This is important, because if it was issued on February 20, 2009 and expires February 19, 2010, then it means that Shermie was indeed driving without valid insurance (and valid certificate) between December 21, 2008 and February 20, 2009.
2. What is the date of payment on the insurance when renewed by Shermie? Once again, these dates help determine the validity of Shermie’s slippery tactics.
Section 4(8) of the Motor Vehicles Insurance Act Ch 48:51 :
But once again, the slippery Shermie will escape.
Defence attorney Israel Khan SC, who is representing the two accused men in the matter, once again attacked the State representative for confusing the differences between insurance policies and insurance certificates.
He said the defendants were "no doubt guilty" of driving and causing to drive a motor vehicle without a valid insurance certificate, however this was not the charge which was before the court.
I did point out that the charges themselves seem to be invalid, as per an indicator to allow Shermie to shed them off as easily as a snake sheds its skin.
Despite Justices De La Bastide, Sharma and Archie’s best attempts to convince me otherwise, I have little faith that the judiciary has clean hands.
Jumbie's Watch
This Prosecutor must have
This Prosecutor must have more cojones than a man. I wonder if she is planning a long career in the Service.
But what surprises me is that the accused did not get his puppet master to put through a call to the Insurance Company to backdate the Insurance Certificate. He must be slipping or they fell out.