A fire of­fi­cer has been freed of a drunk dri­ving charge due to de­lays in pros­e­cut­ing his case.

The charge against as­sis­tant di­vi­sion­al fire of­fi­cer Adesh Har­ri­nar­ine was dis­missed by Mag­is­trate Mau­reen Ba­boolal-Gafoor dur­ing a hear­ing in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court yes­ter­day.

Har­ri­nar­ine was charged af­ter po­lice of­fi­cers ad­min­is­tered a breathal­yser test on him at Wright­son Road in Port-of-Spain on Au­gust 31, 2023.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s hear­ing, Har­ri­nar­ine’s lawyer, Vashisht Seep­er­sad, made an ap­pli­ca­tion for the case to be dis­missed for want of pros­e­cu­tion.

Seep­er­sad not­ed that al­though the case was set for tri­al, po­lice pros­e­cu­tors were not ready to pro­ceed at the hear­ing.

He point­ed out that when his client was first charged, he ap­plied for the dis­clo­sure of cer­tain in­for­ma­tion need­ed to chal­lenge the ac­cu­ra­cy of the breathal­yser test.

The in­for­ma­tion was nev­er dis­closed.

He claimed that his client’s em­ploy­ment with the T&T Fire Ser­vice was al­so af­fect­ed by the pro­tract­ed de­lay.

Po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Williams ad­mit­ted that the po­lice of­fi­cer, who charged Har­ri­nar­ine, failed to sup­ply a case file to be for­ward­ed to the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and did not pro­vide the re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion.

In de­cid­ing the case, Mag­is­trate Ba­boolal-Gafoor stat­ed that the po­lice of­fi­cer did not act with due dili­gence or any dili­gence at all.

How­ev­er, she com­mend­ed Sgt Williams for not seek­ing an ad­journ­ment of the case due to his col­league’s de­lays.

—Derek Achong