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Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne, seen here in a 2020 file photo.
Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne, seen here in a 2020 file photo.
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Chief Magistrate Rechanne Browne says she does not want detectives to be sleeping on the job while accused people wait to have their matters disposed of.

She first made the point on Monday at the Serious Offences Court as prosecutor Sergeant Renrick Cato asked for an adjournment in a matter in which Shorne Bynoe, of Lowmans Leeward, is charged with aggravated burglary and inflicting actual bodily harm on Nikeita Warren, of the same address, in the West Kingstown community on July 10, 2021.

When the matter was called, Cato told the court that the file should arrive at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution that day.

He said that the Crown was seeking an adjournment.

But Browne noted that on Dec. 14, the prosecution had said that the file should have reached the DPP’s office on that day.

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“It was sent back to Sergeant Maloney and has since returned and this is why it is on its way,” Cato said.

Browne indicated that the matter was “right at the threshold” of the time by which it should be disposed of by the court.

She, therefore, adjourned the matter to Friday, Jan. 14. 

Cato asked for a date next week, but the chief magistrate rejected his application.

“Come to Town on Friday. I don’t want investigators sleeping on the job,” Browne said.

She gave a similar warning in the case in which Delroy Quashie, a 46-year-old labourer, of Sally Spring, is awaiting a preliminary inquiry into a charge that on Aug. 22, at Diamond, he murdered Shon Browne aka “Sean Paul”.

Cato told the court that the file had arrived at the DPP’s office but had been sent back for additional work by the investigator, Detective Corporal Hoyte.  

“It is getting close to the —“ he was saying, then asked for an adjournment.

The chief magistrate said that the matter still had some time before the deadline by which the court is expected to dispose of such matters.

Browne, however, said that she does not want the detective “to be sleeping”. 

“The accused is sitting there. He is still innocent until proven guilty,”

Defence counsel Michael Wyllie, who was sitting at the Bar table but was not involved in any of the matters, commented:

“Your honour, it is so refreshing to hear that sentence: ‘Innocent until proven guilty.’”

“That’s how it is,” the chief magistrate responded. 

Wyllie muttered something about the police not seeming to think so. 

The chief magistrate said she would give the matter a short turnaround time. 

It was adjourned to Jan. 20.

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