Police fabricate another witness statement, JFJ shocked

Jerome Reynolds, Gleaner Writer

Human rights lobby group Jamaicans for Justice is expressing shock and surprise that there has been yet another case of a police investigator falsifying a witness statement.

Fitzroy Mathias was yesterday freed of gun charges in the Spanish Town Resident Magistrate’s Court, after the complainant told the court that it was the police investigator who told him what to write in the statement.

The complainant also said that it was the policeman and not he who signed the witness statement.

JFJ Executive Director Dr. Carolyn Gomes says it is disappointing and a travesty that police investigators continue to make fraudulent representation to the courts.

Dr. Gomes laments that these incidents serve to undermine the confidence of Jamaicans in the Police and the justice system.

She said serious action must be taken against police personnel who make misrepresentations to the courts.

Last year, prosecutors had to discontinue a murder case against the alleged leader of the Stone Crusher gang leader Eldon Calvert and two other men, after it was revealed that police investigators in the case falsified a witness statement.

The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions had promised that measures would be implemented to vet witness statements so as to prevent false documents from making their way into criminal cases.

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