A police constable was freed of assault charges in court last week after his lawyer remade a no case submission that had not been accepted by the judge on a previous court date.
Freed of assault occasioning bodily harm is Damion Lewin. Constable Lewin at the time of the incident, May 5, 2009 was attached to the Operation Support Unit in St Ann. The complainant in the case was Donnel Stewart.
According to the case file, Stewart and Lewin had an argument on the streets as two motorists and it spilled over into the Moneague Police station where Stewart had gone.
It was alleged that while Stewart was in the guard room, Lewin rushed in and began inflicting blows all over the body of Stewart and also to his face. Stewart suffered injured to his face and an eye, resulting from the fracas. A blow was said to have been thrown at the cop.
OFFICERS TESTIFY
The prosecution called several witnesses, during the trial in the Claremont Court. This included three police officers who said they were witnesses to the attack. They supported the complainant’s version of events.
In cross examination of one of the police officers, a district constable, it was put to him that Lewin had asked Stewart where was the gun he said he had. The DC said he had not heard any such comment or question from Lewin. However, it was pointed out to him that he had it in his written statement. Several inconsistencies about the blows reportedly inflicted by Lewin were also pointed out by his attorney Oswest Senior Smith.
On that occasion, July 27, Mr Senior Smith made a no case submission, saying there was no case for his client to answer. Parish judge Vaughn Facey said the case was marginal and denied the no case submission, citing sources in law.
Mr Senior Smith asked for time to read those judgments and to return to court.
Mr Senior Smith, on Tuesday, September 5, returned to court and remade his submission that there was no case for his client to answer.
In hearing it, Judge Facey said the DC should not have been called as a witness because he destroyed the case of the prosecution. He said there was “an avalanche of errors in the case.” In upholding the no case submission and freeing the policeman, Judge Facey said there was a “plethora of questions” asked by Senior Smith to which the complainant didn’t remember the details, saying he couldn’t remember.
