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Trinidad: Shorter Sentences for Squealers- Judge’s Plan to Reel in Drug ‘Big Boys’.
By admin | October 22, 2004
Trinidad Express
Oct 19 2004
Drug offenders who cooperate with the police and provide information which can help nab the supplier will receive reduced sentences from the courts, a High Court judge said yesterday in passing sentences against two Carenage men.
Although lawyers representing Cleveland McLean, 50, and Carlton Bernard, 52, had pleaded with Justice Mark Mohammed not to send their clients to jail, the judge noting the seriousness and prevalence of marijuana trafficking sentenced both men to serve two years each.
Mohammed, sitting in the Port of Spain Fifth Criminal Court, at the Hall of Justice further discounted the sentences because the men had admitted their guilt.
They had pleaded guilty on October 13, to the charge of being in possession of just over four kilogrammes of marijuana and even the Director of Public Prosecutions supported the application of a non-custodial sentence for McLean because of the prisoner’s assistance to the police.
McLean had rescued a crew at sea and was paid for his kindness with two blocks of marijuana on July 29, 2002.
He had intended to take the illegal drugs to the police but ended up in a village rumshop where he related his tale. Taxi-driver Bernard who offered to take the drunken boatman home with the illegal stash was also arrested by police on Haig Street after a package of the drug was found under the driver’s seat.
Cpl Clifford Caesar had stopped Bernard’s car along Haig Street, Carenage and saw McLean, sitting in the front passenger seat, with a package on his lap. Upon checking the contents, the officer found that the package contained a quantity of marijuana. A similarly wrapped package was found under the driver’s seat. Bernard told the officer that he was giving McLean a lift home.
State Counsel Nadia James appeared for the prosecution attorneys Llewellyn Thompson and Keith Scotland represented the prisoners.
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