Court turns down bid to take case to Privy Council

Jones

AMIDST STRONG criticisms of lawyers who swindle their clients' money, the Court of Appeal yesterday threw out an application for prominent Kingston attorney-at-law Sonia Jones to take her case to the United Kingdom Privy Council.

The Court found that attorney-at-law Garth McBean, who represents Jones, had shown no point of law of exceptional public importance in Jones' case which should be resolved by the Privy Council.

Jones lost her bid on Monday to persuade the Court of Appeal to set aside her convictions and 18-month prison term for defrauding two of her clients of US$83,740. Miss Jones was at the Court of Appeal on Monday when her appeal was dismissed. She was taken away by the police and is now serving her sentence at the Women's Prison, at Fort Augusta.

"Public importance is that when attorneys-at-law are entrusted with money to do a particular thing they are to do that and nothing else," Mr. Justice Seymour Panton said yesterday. The judge remarked earlier during the hearing that "lawyers should not have any problems when they get people's money. They must not use it to pay other people's bills." The judge said the "case was riddled with untruthful statements" by Jones.

Paula Llewellyn, Acting Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, in response to Mr. McBean's application, asked the court not to grant the application. She cited authorities to show that Resident Magistrate Marcia Hughes (now deceased) had dealt adequately with the facts of the case. She pointed out that what the appeal came down to were essential questions of fact hinging on credibility.

The Court of Appeal, comprising the Hon. Ian Forte, President of the Court of Appeal, Mr. Justice Ransford Langrin and Mr. Justice Seymour Panton, heard the application for leave and dismissed it. Mr. Justice Langrin had given a dissenting judgment in Jones' appeal. The court said it could not come to any conclusion that any of the four questions could be certified by the court.

Jones, 54, was convicted in December 1999 of defrauding artist Colin Garland and Lloyd Reckord, playwright and actor, of US$83,740 which they had given to her in 1995 to invest for them.

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