Police to receive legal advice on Sheriff St accident next week
Ambeka Providence
Ambeka Providence

 

THE Guyana Police Force (GPF) has said it is awaiting legal advice on the September 10 fatal accident at Sheriff Street, Campbellville which claimed the life of four-year-old Abeka Trotman Providence.Speaking with Guyana Chronicle via telephone on Thursday, acting Police Commissioner David Ramnarine said the Force is likely to receive the legal advice within the new week. He declined to state when the advice was sought.

David Ramnarine
David Ramnarine

“I, as the acting Commissioner of Police, wish to assure the parties involved in that fatal accident that if not [today], then sometime in the new week, we will receive the legal advice in that matter,” Ramnarine said.

However, when asked why the Police Force was holding strong that the file was with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) when it was in fact not there, Ramnarine would only say that the “legal people” are inundated with work.

“I am not going to answer all those questions. I do not give instructions to the legal people; they have hundreds of files to deal with,” Ramnarine remarked.

Ramnarine’s statement comes just days after the DPP had issued a statement revealing that a file on the case was never received. The police have said that the file was expected to pass through the Police Commissioner before being submitted for legal advice, noting that legal advice can however be had from either the DPP or the Police Legal Adviser.

Police Public Relations and Press Officer Jairam Ramlakhan had said in a letter to the editor on September 30 that the file was being sent for legal advice that very day. The uncertainty in relation to the whereabouts of the file and matter has left Dereck Bayley, one the drivers involved in the accident, worried. Bayley’s car, PMM 1426, was hit on the left side by motor vehicle GPP 3500, being driven by 21-year-old Heeranand Boodhram, who reportedly was driving under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident.

Providence, a passenger in Bayley’s car, was flung from the vehicle onto Sheriff Street, and reportedly died on the spot. Both drivers were released on station bail.

Bayley told Guyana Chronicle that since the accident, he has been calling an officer attached to the Kitty Police Station to enquire about the case, and was told on almost every occasion that the matter was “with the DPP,” a claim the DPP has denied.

“[On Wednesday] when I call him after I see the thing in the papers, I seh ‘man, wah going on with the matter?’ but I didn’t tell him I see the thing in the papers, and he said the matter is with the DPP. I ask him if anybody get charge for the thing, he seh ‘no, the matter has to go to the DPP first, for the DPP to say who will be charged and who will not be charged’. I seh ‘man, how the matter is with the DPP when in the papers here it got that the DPP don’t know nothing about it, they have no file about it?’ Then he turn and tell me that this thing got a procedure to move from this body to that body to that body. But if he di tell me that in the first place, I woulda understand.”

Dereck Bayley
Dereck Bayley

Bayley said he, over the past month, has been following up on the case, but has not been getting answers. He feels that someone is hiding vital information, as he cannot comprehend why he was never told before Wednesday that the file was going to the DPP.

“Is like is some cooking-up or whole heap of skullduggery going on in the place. I can see is one month and the matter is still with the DPP, and then the DPP now going seh they don’t have no report. Is like drunken driver got rights now more than the innocent people; because they could kill you and do what they want, and because they got a little money, you pushing people around that don’t have money.

“If was two poor man the matter would have done serve already,” Bayley said.

 

SHARE THIS ARTICLE :
Facebook
Twitter
WhatsApp

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All our printed editions are available online
emblem3
Subscribe to the Guyana Chronicle.
Sign up to receive news and updates.
We respect your privacy.