A former commissioned officer in the Coast Guard is appealing his conviction and dismissal from the Barbados Defence Force to the Court of Appeal.
A hearing has been set for December 9 before the three-member panel of the Chief Justice Sir Patterson Cheltenham and Justices of Appeal Francis Belle and Margaret Reifer.
Lieutenant David Anthony Harewood, an 18-year military veteran, was court-martialed and convicted of charges that on an unknown date in January 2018, being a commissioned officer of the BDF and having knowledge of a threat to the life of Ordinary Seaman Marlon Scott, he neglected to inform his superiors of the threat and that he conducted unauthorized information gathering operations, conduct unbecoming of a commissioned officer of the BDF, between January 1, 2014, and September 30, 2018.
He was dismissed from the BDF back in June 2019 after a five-member tribunal found him guilty on the two charges.
Harewood is now before the Court of Appeal challenging the verdict and sentence on seven grounds, through attorney-at-law Vincent Watson. Among the grounds are that the sentence was excessive; that the findings of the court-martial on the first count were unsupported by the evidence led in the case and that neither of the instances of what was purportedly said show a declaration or intent to harm or injure Ordinary Seaman Scott. The appeal also claims that the court-martial finding on the second account that Harewood engaged in unauthorised information gathering was unreasonable and is not supported by the evidence.
Senior Crown Counsel Oliver Thomas is appearing for the Barbados Defence Force in association with attorneys-at-law Rita Evans and Neville Corbin.
