A key witness in a dangerous driving case told the High Court she has no memory of the crash that claimed the lives of her infant daughter and a close friend, and left her without an arm.
Melissa Crichlow was testifying as the causing death by dangerous driving trial of Troy Emerson Clinton continued in the No. 5 Supreme Court.
Clinton, of Brereton Village #2, St Philip, is accused of causing the deaths of Akalia Natasha Weir and a female minor by driving a motor vehicle on Lower Estate Road, St Michael, on April 21, 2011, at a speed and in a manner dangerous to the public.
Principal State Counsel Romario Straker is prosecuting the case, in which Senior Counsel Andrew Pilgrim and attorney Lesley Cargill-Straker represent Clinton. Justice Pamela Beckles presides, while a jury of nine women listens to the evidence.
Taking the witness stand, Crichlow recalled leaving home to go to a supermarket in St James with her friend in a “ZM” taxi, “shaped like a ZR”.
“I remember leaving the minimart but on the journey when I get to the roundabout to make it back to Lears, I cannot remember anything from there,” she said, adding that at the time it was around 7 p.m., and it was getting dark outside.
“We went around the roundabout like normal. I was talking to my friend Akalia,” Crichlow said, stating that the van was being driven by Troy Clinton, whom she knew “as he used to drop me home from work through someone.”
The witness said the next thing she remembered was waking up in hospital.
“When I woke up, there were nurses asking me what day it is, what is my name and questions like that. I noticed my hand was missing. They tried to detour me from it but I still saw it and then from there everything was not normal,” she said.
Crichlow testified that she had been sitting on the left side of the vehicle by the door. She could not see if there were any seat belts to fasten and was not wearing one at the time.
She said that her infant daughter along with Akalia and Akalia’s son were also in the vehicle, and that a few days after waking up in hospital, she was told that her child and Akalia had died.
The witness said that when she had been working at a supermarket in 2008, she would contact Clinton to take her home from work “in between when I cannot get home, I would call him at the hours that we working and use him as a taxi”.
She stated that it took around 20 minutes to get from the minimart to Lears roundabout and said she could not recall how Clinton was driving.
During cross-examination, she said that no one was wearing seat belts and that there were no child seats in the vehicle.
Asked whether there was any provision made for her to place a child seat in the vehicle, Crichlow said: “I can see the reason now because it was a taxi and she was a very young child.”
Consultant pathologist with the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Dr David Gaskin, also gave evidence and stated that the cause of death for both Weir and the two-month-old infant was blunt head trauma.
(JB)
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