Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
THE COURT of Appeal yesterday quashed the murder conviction of a 22-year-old man and sent a clear message that the Judges' Rules should not be breached.
Omar Clarke, of Cockburn Gardens, Kingston 11, was freed after the court upheld submissions from defence lawyer Ravil Golding that the breaches had occurred.
Mr. Golding argued that, at the time of the incident, Clarke was 16 years old and the evidence against him was a statement to the police which implicated him in the murder.
Clarke had said in his statement that two gunmen had asked him to go into the bar and report to them, and he had done so under duress.
A MINOR AT THE TIME
Mr. Golding submitted that Clarke was a minor at the time when he gave the statement to the police. He submitted further that the Judges' Rules stipulated that because Clarke was a minor, his parents, an adult relative, a Justice of the Peace or his attorney-at-law should have been present when he was giving the statement.
Mr. Golding said he had raised the issue at the trial but the trial judge erred when she did not uphold the legal submissions.
Justice Paul Harrison, President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Algernon Smith and Justice Zaila McCalla upheld the legal arguments and freed Clarke. His sentence of life imprisonment was set aside.
Clarke was convicted in December 2002, along with Nassive Harriott, labourer, of Cockburn Gardens, of the murder of Detective Constable Selvin English. The policeman was gunned down on February 4, 2000, during a robbery at a bar on Goffe Road, Kingston 11. Harriott lost his appeal. He will have to serve his sentence of life imprisonment.
