Chief Justice blasts police for late arrival at court with prisoners

Chief Justice Bryan Sykes has blasted the police for what he has described as the constabulary's failure to improve on bringing prisoners to court in a timely manner.

Sykes was responding to a revelation in this morning's sitting of the St James Circuit Court that several prisoners who were to be brought for sentence hearings had not yet arrived, despite 10 minutes having elapsed since the timely start of the court's proceedings.

"What could be simpler than transporting a person from Point A to Point B? This is the same problem I have been having with the police since I started working in October 1986, and it tells me the police have not improved in that regard," Sykes complained.

"In the past 30 years, the police now have PhD and master's degrees, and the police have made innumerable training courses...how is it that 30 years later, for people with master's degrees, numerous CSEC and CAPE subjects, and all that education, the basic thing to bring the prisoner from here to there by a certain time cannot be done? Clearly, bringing prisoners to court on time is not and could never have been a priority of the police," Sykes added.

The chief justice's criticism is an echo of a call made by Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn and High Court Judge Gloria Smith in 2015 that the police should do more to improve transportation of prisoners to court.

At that time, the call was made in the Home Circuit Court in Kingston following the revelation that only one police vehicle was currently being used to transport prisoners to court, resulting in several cases starting late.

Today's matters in the St James Circuit Court, over which Sykes is presiding, include the sentencing hearing of 62-year-old Winston Jarrett, who had previously pleaded guilty to the January 2020 murder of his 18-year-old sister-in-law Juliann White.

White was found on January 25, 2020, with her throat slashed.

- Christopher Thomas

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