Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) Suzette Mar­tin will no longer be pros­e­cut­ed for dan­ger­ous dri­ving. 

The Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) in­di­cat­ed its in­ten­tion to dis­con­tin­ue the charge as Mar­tin reap­peared be­fore Se­nior Mag­is­trate Mau­reen Ba­boolal-Gafoor on Mon­day morn­ing.

Deputy DPP Giselle Fer­gu­son-Heller did not re­veal the rea­son for the de­ci­sion. 

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that there was an er­ror in the no­tice of dis­con­tin­u­ance that was ini­tial­ly filed and it was cor­rect­ed be­fore be­ing pre­sent­ed dur­ing a fol­low-up hear­ing yes­ter­day. 

The out­come was wel­comed by Mar­tin’s lawyer Dar­ren Mitchell, who thanked the DPP’s of­fice for tak­ing the ac­tion. 

“I want to com­mend the DPP and by ex­ten­sion Miss Heller for the demon­stra­tion of jus­tice and in­de­pen­dence in a case that can be safe­ly viewed as mis­chief and des­per­a­tion,” Mitchell said. 

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to con­tact DPP Roger Gas­pard, to ex­plain his de­ci­sion to ex­er­cise his pow­er un­der Sec­tion 90 of the Con­sti­tu­tion to dis­con­tin­ue the case, but he did not an­swer calls to his cell­phone and What­sApp mes­sages. 

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. 

She said she al­ways had the ut­most re­spect for the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem based on her pro­fes­sion. 

“The court op­er­ates with in­tegri­ty and im­par­tial­i­ty, and as a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer, I re­main com­mit­ted to up­hold­ing the prin­ci­ples of jus­tice and fair­ness in all as­pects of my work,” she said. 

Mar­tin vowed to con­tin­ue to pro­tect and serve 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. 

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view, at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh, who led Mar­tin’s le­gal team, not­ed that he and his col­leagues ques­tioned the “strange” cir­cum­stances in which she was charged dur­ing her first court hear­ing. 

Singh point­ed out that she re­ceived a sum­mons no­ti­fy­ing her of the charge on the eve of the six-month dead­line for lay­ing the charge af­ter the ac­ci­dent elapsed. 

“The con­flu­ence of cir­cum­stances when this case was brought, when my client was up for pro­mo­tion to the high­er ranks, leaves very much to be de­sired be­cause this case was closed for all in­tents and pur­pos­es by the po­lice, who had con­duct­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and no fur­ther ac­tion was re­quired or rec­om­mend­ed,” Singh said. 

Singh said his client has not ruled out tak­ing le­gal ac­tion over what tran­spired. 

“My client is keep­ing her op­tions open to vin­di­cate her rights,” he said. 

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on the de­ci­sion yes­ter­day, Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA) di­rec­tor David West de­clined to do so.

“I am not aware why the DPP dis­con­tin­ued the case so it will be in­ap­pro­pri­ate for me to com­ment,” West said. 

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

A 14-year-old stu­dent was cross­ing the road to get to school at 8.30 am 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 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. 

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, the teen’s fa­ther de­clined to im­me­di­ate­ly com­ment on the dropped case as he had just heard the news.

“I am still pro­cess­ing it,” he said. 

He al­so pro­vid­ed an up­date on his son’s con­di­tion. 

“Well, he has re­turned to school but still suf­fers from the in­jury. He is still do­ing ther­a­py at the Ari­ma Hos­pi­tal. He has his next ap­point­ment in Jan­u­ary,” he said. 

He al­so claimed his son was still trau­ma­tised by the ac­ci­dent. 

Mar­tin was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by re­tired po­lice com­mis­sion­er James Philbert and at­tor­ney Rishi Seep­er­sad.