.jpg)
The prosecution of the officer followed the Sunday morning accident in which the defendant is alleged to have struck and killed 70-year-old Chanderjit Sanichar known as ‘Canter’, of Lot 52 Zohara Street, Better Hope, while at the wheel of Toyota 212 motor car number PMM 8354 and proceeding along the East Coast Public Road.
When Tappin appeared in court on Monday, the results of a post-mortem on Sanichar was not yet made available to investigators either. As such, the police charged the driver with the offence of driving under the influence.
There were several reports in sections of the media that the magistrate allowed Tappin $10,000 bail and comments were reported that the police, although knowing that the driver had caused the death of the man, failed to charge him with causing it.
Had misinformed
Another claim was that the police ranks investigating the case had misinformed the court by failing to inform the magistrate that the victim had succumbed.
Yesterday, relatives of the dead man, who were not in court on Monday, admitted that the post-mortem results, made available to them sometime after 09:00 hrs on Monday, proved that the man died as a result of multiple injuries.
Yesterday, too, a senior police officer, who is also involved in the investigation told the Guyana Chronicle that they could not have charged the driver with causing death by dangerous driving in the absence of the autopsy report.
The policeman pointed out, as well, that, on the night of the accident, there were no eyewitnesses and the reported point of impact, the location of the pedestrian crossing and from where the victim’s body was removed, are posing some challenges and raising concerns for investigators.
He said, because of those factors, the police are now forced to revisit the accident scene and do a reassessment of the evidence available to them, as the circumstances are still being investigated and the file will have to be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for advice on the way forward.
Other possible charges could be instituted against the driver, given the post-mortem findings.
Second case
This is the second case for the year in which Magistrate Moore was accused of granting pre-trial freedom for a small amount of surety to a driver fingered for causing death.
In the first, previously, a teenage driver was taken to the court, charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and was placed on $7,500 bail. At the time of the charge, the police did not tell the magistrate that they were still conducting investigations into the accident which claimed the life of two persons and injured several others.
When word of the surety was made known in the press, the magistrate was criticised but the police returned, days later, laying three more charges against the same defendant.
The magistrate asked the police the reason for charging the man with one offence, knowing they had intentions of slapping him with charges for other offences.
Their excuse was that they were still investigating and that prompted the magistrate to question the logic of the police just trying to rush a matter through court without getting all the necessary facts in place.
It is not known how the magistrate will deal with this latest incident which has caused him to, again, be unfairly criticised, giving the wrong impression that he had granted $10,000 bail to a man accused of causing death by dangerous driving.
