POLICE SERGEANT Uriah Brown of the Motorised Division of the police force, who overtook a line of traffic and collided with a motorcar, killing two men, has lost his appeal against his manslaughter convictions and two-year prison sentence.
"This case was another example of dangerous overtaking on the public roads at high speed," Mr. Justice Clarence Walker said yesterday when he delivered the unanimous decision.
Brown, 43, of a Portmore address, St. Catherine, was convicted in the St. Ann Circuit Court on June 13 last year of two counts of manslaughter arising from the death of two 21 year-old students, Gregory Vassell and Mark Williams, both of Kingston addresses. The accident occurred on the Llandovery main road in St. Ann on March 4, 2000.
Both men were killed, when a police car driven by Brown collided with a Nissan Sunny motorcar in which the students were travelling, causing the car to burst into flames while both students remained trapped inside. Brown received burns to his body before he and Sergeant Trevor Christie were rescued by passing motorists who took them to the St. Ann's Bay Hospital. Michael McKennon had testified at the trial before Mr. Justice Karl Harrison and jury that while travelling on the Llandovery main road in St. Ann, he saw a police car overtake a line of traffic including his vehicle and crashed into the Nissan motorcar which burst into flames. He said he tried to rescue the occupants of the Nissan, but the doors could not open and so he then moved over to the police car and, with the assistance of passing motorists, the two officers were pulled from the wreckage and sent to hospital for treatment. He said the police vehicle was travelling at a fast speed.
Brown had said in his defence that it was a Toyota Starlet motorcar and a Nissan motorcar which overtook a line of traffic. He said the Nissan motorcar cut across the road, crashed into the police car and exploded.
He had appealed on the ground that the judge misdirected the jury and the sentence was manifestly excessive.
The Court of Appeal comprising Mr. Justice Henderson Downer, Mr. Justice Clarence Walker and Mr. Justice Algernon Smith upheld the convictions and sentence and ordered that Brown's two-year prison sentence should commence on September 13, 2002. The court said "in the circumstances prevailing in Jamaica today, save in exceptional circumstances, any motorvehicle driver who is found to be guilty of motor manslaughter must expect to receive a sentence of imprisonment.
