Judge blasts two-year wait in ‘simple’ gun case as ‘foolishness’

Gun crime cases must be fast-tracked to the High Court within 90 days if Barbados is serious about tackling escalating firearm violence, a High Court judge warned, condemning systemic delays as “foolishness”.

“We have to get to a culture to hit fast and hard and I guarantee you this gun scourge will run away,” said Justice, raising concerns about a 2024 firearm and ammunition possession case that has taken two years to reach the court despite having only nine witnesses, the majority of whom were police officers.

Justice Greaves said: “We have to straighten up. This is a 2024 case and it now gets here? A possession of firearm and ammunition case? This is foolishness. This should be here in 90 days. I am insisting on it. I will not give up until that is the rule in this country. This case has nine witnesses, seven of which are police. Why did it take so long to get this here? And we say we are serious about firearms in this country?” 

He identified the slow production of disclosure by law enforcement as a major cause of delay and demanded a more efficient process.

“According to you all, you caught the man with the gun, carried him in to get charged and we now get here with this? Foolishness. You cannot be serious. There are two civilians, the ballistics expert, the scenes of crime officer, photographer, the police officer who keeps the record for the police, the officer who executed the search warrant, the officer who attended the scene with him and another officer.” 

“Tell me why in the world a case like that would take two years to get here if we are serious and care about this country. No man in the world cannot be that busy that he cannot sit down and do this. It shouldn’t even take 90 days to get this to court and that is why I am saying that there must be a 90 day rule.”

The judge outlined that there must be a required time period by which summary and indictable matters were ready to proceed before their relevant courts.

“I have been preaching it ever since. Where any matter is summary, the police must have 30 days within which that matter must be ready before a summary court at the magistrate level. Where it is indictable, they should have 60 days in which that matter should be ready and moved from the Magistrate Court to the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) and 30 days in which that matter should be indicted and sent before the (Supreme) court. Then the court will fix a trial date whether it is two weeks down the road, six months or a year because of the court calendar and the case will be managed between the indictment date and the trial date.” 

“You cannot sit around managing, managing, managing before you have a date before the Supreme Court. You are wasting time, dragging feet!”

Acknowledging that there would be exceptions to the rule where evidence may be required from overseas sources, Justice Greaves nevertheless insisted that there should be no reason for delay in firearm cases reaching the court.

He told the police prosecution: “If an accused makes a confession statement or doesn’t, you cannot go back and get another one from him once you have charged him. So who are we waiting for? If you have to carry out further investigations, those will be carried out and the additional information you get can be served on him.” 

“You cannot sit down on a file waiting and waiting for that to happen. If you have enough to charge him, you must have enough to get him here before the courts or else what do you charge him for?”

 

(JB)