Closing arguments in the trial of a police officer charged with causing death by dangerous driving will be heard in the No. 5 Supreme Court on June 30.
Station Sergeant Troy Ryan O’Neal Small has denied causing the death of 74-year-old Denzil Allman by driving a police vehicle on Black Rock Main Road, St Michael, at a speed and in a manner dangerous to the public, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, on December 8, 2021.
On Friday, the final defence witness, Inspector Edwin Sandiford, read entries from the radio log book, the daily diary and the action post-mortem register in which calls received by the police operations control centre and the information broadcast to police officers in the field on that date, were recorded.
Based on those records, at 8:03 p.m. the control centre had been contacted by a female caller who said, “I need an ambulance at Two Mile Hill. He took bleach and has a knife to kill himself. I told him the relationship is not working out. I done. That is why he took the bleach and drank bleach.”
Sandiford, who was a station sergeant at the time, said that subsequently, the ambulance service received another call from the female. On that occasion, she said a man who was in the background had taken away the phone, but then the call ended abruptly.
The witness stated that a broadcast was then issued for other mobile units to respond to the matter to give support to the unit already on its way, and at 8:19 p.m., Small’s unit said it would do so.
The jury was also allowed to hear transmissions between Sandiford and Small, with the latter asking for further information on the domestic situation.
Inspector Sandiford was asked by defence counsel Ensley Grainger, who along with Senior Counsel Arthur Holder and attorney Brandi Browne represent Small, what type of response he wanted in sending out the broadcast. The police witness replied, “an urgent response taking into consideration the last information that we received from the ambulance service.”
Under cross-examination by State Counsel Anastacia McMeo-Boyce, the inspector said police are permitted to break the speed limit but are not allowed to breach red lights.
Referring to the internal standing orders of the police regarding traffic signals, the prosecutor read: “All road signs and traffic signals must be complied with by drivers of police vehicles, and only in cases of extreme emergency will a driver be exempted, but he must remember that he is disobeying such signs or signals at his own risk.”
Sandiford replied: “Yes, ma’am, police officers, whether or not they are responding to emergencies, should be cautious.”
Though acknowledging that the standing orders were not law, Sandiford told the court that he considered the situation that had been called in to the police that evening to be an extreme emergency.
The post Final arguments to be heard in police fatal crash trial appeared first on Barbados Today.
