A lawyer, on Monday, asked a court to order that police return all the personal belongings of a client who had pleaded guilty to and was sentenced on a number of charges.
Jomo Thomas asked the court to specifically include in its order Meshach Dublin’s cellular phone.
After Dublin was sentenced, Thomas told the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court that the police have a habit of taking away the cell phones of accused people and accessing their content without the permission of the court.
Thomas said that he had been speaking earlier with prosecutor Corporal Delando Charles, who had indicated that Dublin’s phone had been sent out of the country.
“The thing is that the state can only enter someone’s phone, based on constitutional law, if it gets a court order to go into someone’s phone, because that is private property, which is protected by the constitution,” he told Magistrate Bertie Pompey, who was presiding.
The lawyer said that there was a case out of Grenada that speaks to that precise point.
“The police in St. Vincent seem to have a habit of taking people’s phones, sending it abroad, at least claiming to send it abroad, and the phone seems to get lost in the system.”
Thomas said he has a client whose phone was taken away three years ago on an allegation and the client is yet to get it back.
“The police should return everything that was taken from this gentleman, Meshach Dublin, including his phone,” Thomas said.
Court ordered that all the exhibits that were Dublin’s personal property be returned to him.
However, Charles told the court that based on information given to him, he could not confirm or deny that Dublin’s phone was sent overseas.
“It is not a case, as it was relayed to counsel, that the phone actually went overseas. This was just information that was relayed to me and I cannot confirm or deny that the phone went overseas.”
On Monday, Dublin, 26, of Diamonds, was jailed for two years and five months for possession of three firearms that had been stolen from the Georgetown Police Station in June.
The people and the system down there in saint Vincent is pure poppy show. Wake up you all and get the country on the right foot. Police again with their corrupt minds. They are real fool fools you all have down there. They are the ones who should be prosecuted . for sure they took the people phones
Look how OUT OF CONTROL the SVG Government is! They seem to not let anything like the law get in their way. Things like “respect”, “freedom” “rights” are all quickly disappearing in SVG. Many in custody get police beatings! I shudder to think what the country will be like in 1 year!
We all see that Authoritarian Rule is coming, or already here, in SVG. You should wonder when it will be YOU that gets your property taken away or just your cell phone. Maybe they will come to your property, shoot you, threaten your life, and then seek to have the courts see you as the culprit! Is your family poor and do you have an attractive daughter? Hope that she will not be coerced into actions with politicians that so many other daughters have found themselves the victims of.
God help us!