Following last Saturday’s massive fire that devoured the Brickdam Police Station along with a plethora of case files, Government has announced plans to fully digitise all records of the Police Force in the country.
Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, during launching of the Support for the Criminal Justice System programme on Thursday, said the initiative is aimed at ensuring sufficient service delivery.
“We will soon donate to the Police Force a large complement of commuters and printers, with express intention that they are to be used for the typing of statements which are to be used as the basis for prosecution in the courts across this country”.
Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister, Anil Nandlall
According to the Attorney General, in the criminal justice system, the statements that are served are done in handwriting.
“Sometimes it makes the work very tedious and difficult reading. That, hopefully, will change, and this programme will donate to the Police Force that complement of equipment…to remove the handwriting of statements served in criminal processes across Guyana”, he explained.
Only recently, the Legal Affairs Ministry had undertaken to rehabilitate the court Superintendent’s office, which was housed at the Brickdam Police Station. Nandlall noted that the recent fire would greatly delay progress in the criminal justice system, since most, if not all, documents that are related to criminal cases went up in flames.
“The burning down of the Brickdam Police Station will have a devastating impact upon the criminal justice system, at least in the magisterial district of Georgetown…the Court Sup Office, which was accommodated in that building, is the custodian of most, if not all, of the files in the criminal justice system in the Georgetown magisterial district”.
Nandalal said each document would have to be reconstructed, and, if possible, would have to be borrowed from the Magistrates’ courts. He posited that that task would be an expensive, time consuming and arduous one.
“It will result in more chronic delay…we are trying to bring speediness to the wheels of justice, and then there are those who wish to put a spoke in that wheel… Those people of Guyana who are innocent or guilty, who are in the system, will now have to remain in the system… they will suffer the injustice”, he voiced.
He further added that the Government is currently putting systems in place to ease the pressure on the judicial system. Those systems include sentencing guidelines for offenders, along with a bail bill that is in its final stages.
“It is also this project that is producing a bail bill… bail is one of the vexed questions in our country…”, he posited.
The Attorney General has said the Chief Parliamentary Council, along with others, is currently reviewing the legislation with regard to the pre-trail bargain, since they are aware that the system is being misused.
Brickdam Station fire
On Saturday last, fire consumed 80 per cent of the Police Headquarters at Brickdam. Among the facilities destroyed are the Property Room, Inquires Office, Traffic Department and Officers’ Mess. Just the barracks located on the western end and lining Manget Place remained intact, along with the Impact Building and the lockups.
Salvage records were saved, and the station’s arsenal of weapons was secure before the building was completely destroyed.
A suspect, according to Police, confessed on video to setting the Police Headquarters on fire after he was questioned by two of his cellmates. Based on reports, the suspect was recently arrested in connection with an alleged robbery-under-arms incident, and was placed in the Brickdam lockups prior to starting the fire.
The man told the Police that he became frustrated after being detained for a long period of time, and he then decided to start the fire.
The confession led Police to question all the prisoners at the Brickdam Station at the time of the incident.
The two informants were taken from the Brickdam lockups to the Sparendaam Station on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD), where they were placed in a cell with the suspect.
During that time in the cell, the suspect allegedly informed the men that it was he who had started the fire which destroyed the station.
The two men alleged that the man told them that he took a piece of sponge, wrapped it on a piece of wire, and lit it with a cigarette lighter before pushing it through a ventilation hole in the cell.
It is reported that the cell was connected to another room that had some documents in it, and that was how the fire was started. The suspect was later interviewed on camera, and he allegedly confessed again to Police.
However, Fire Prevention Officer Sheldon Sauns told the media on Thursday that no sponge was found at the site of the fire. He said samples of paper, wood, and bits and pieces of cloth, along with part of a lighter, were found.
Nevertheless, the 26-year-old suspect, who has been identified as Clarence Greene, appeared before Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan in that Georgetown Magistrate’s court on Thursday, arraigned on two indictable charges of armed robbery and arson.
The first charge stated that on October 2, 2021, he robbed Chitrannie Ramkissoon of a cellphone valued at $160,000 while being armed with a gun. That same day, while being a prisoner at the Brickdam Police Station lock-ups, he unlawfully set fire to the Police Station. (G9)
