DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The dan­ger­ous dri­ving case against Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) Suzette Mar­tin was dis­con­tin­ued based on there be­ing in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence to se­cure a con­vic­tion. 

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, ex­plained the rea­sons for his de­ci­sion to dis­con­tin­ue the charge on Mon­day. 

While Gas­pard stat­ed that he was not re­quired to dis­close his rea­sons for ex­er­cis­ing his ex­clu­sive re­mit over crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions un­der Sec­tion 90 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, he ac­cept­ed that an ex­pla­na­tion was nec­es­sary based on the pub­lic in­ter­est in the case. 

Gas­pard said: “The rea­son why the mat­ter would have been dis­con­tin­ued is be­cause hav­ing re­viewed the ev­i­dence in the file, es­pe­cial­ly the CCTV footage, I was of the view that there was no fair prospect of con­vic­tion on that ev­i­dence.

“Put sim­ply, the ev­i­dence is ten­u­ous and there is a pauci­ty of ev­i­dence,” he added. 

He al­so ex­plained why his of­fice re­viewed the ev­i­dence af­ter ad­vis­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tors to lay the charge based on a pre­lim­i­nary in­spec­tion of it (the ev­i­dence). 

“Some­times the po­lice would con­sult us and the file is not com­plete. Some­times the po­lice would con­sult us and new in­for­ma­tion is forth­com­ing af­ter those con­sul­ta­tions,” he said. 

Gas­pard said his of­fice had a du­ty to treat all cit­i­zens, in­clud­ing pub­lic of­fice hold­ers, fair­ly. 

“The touch­stone is fair­ness, and our du­ty to be fair must not turn on who it is and what post they hold,” he said. 

The charge against Mar­tin was dis­con­tin­ued as she reap­peared in court ear­li­er this week. 

The charge against Mar­tin re­lat­ed to an in­ci­dent which took place around 8.30 am on April 18, last year, along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR) in the Croisee in San Juan. 

A 14-year-old stu­dent was cross­ing the road to get to school when he was al­leged­ly struck by an un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cle dri­ven by Mar­tin. 

The vic­tim suf­fered frac­tures to his leg.  

An in­ves­ti­ga­tion was con­duct­ed by the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA). 

Mar­tin was charged via sum­mons and or­dered to ap­pear in court. The charge was laid by As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Wayne Mys­tar. 

Mar­tin, who was a Se­nior Supt and the head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Pro­fes­sion­al Stan­dards Bu­reau (PSB) at the time, plead­ed not guilty. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that Mar­tin briefly re­mained in charge of the unit that in­ves­ti­gates mis­con­duct al­le­ga­tions against po­lice of­fi­cers, as the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions did not re­quire her to be sus­pend­ed pend­ing the out­come of the case. 

While the case was pend­ing, Mar­tin re­ceived suc­ces­sive pro­mo­tions. She cur­rent­ly serves as DCP of In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tions. 

Con­tact­ed on Tues­day, the vic­tim’s fa­ther said that his son had re­turned to school but is still ex­pe­ri­enc­ing pain from the in­jury for which he is re­ceiv­ing ther­a­py. 

In a state­ment is­sued yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Mar­tin thanked God for the favourable out­come. 

“I firm­ly be­lieve that the truth has pre­vailed, and I thank the Almighty for pro­vid­ing clar­i­ty in this sit­u­a­tion,” she said. 

Mar­tin vowed to con­tin­ue to pro­tect and serve the cit­i­zens of T&T. 

“As Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, I con­tin­ue to pri­ori­tise the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of our peo­ple. My re­spon­si­bil­i­ty is to lead the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) with pro­fes­sion­al­ism, in­tegri­ty, and com­mit­ment,” she said. 

Mar­tin was rep­re­sent­ed by Jagdeo Singh, re­tired po­lice com­mis­sion­er James Philbert, Dar­ren Mitchell, and at­tor­ney Rishi Seep­er­sad.