The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

FOUR men who were accused of plotting to kill a police commissioner when they were police constables have won a partial victory in the courts against the force.

However, Stephen Dwight Stubbs, Henry Allen Brice, Keith Patton and Chester McKenzie will only be compensated for damages for the breach of their right to trial in a reasonable time.

“All other reliefs claimed are hereby dismissed,” Justice Stephen Isaacs ruled yesterday.

The four were arrested in the 1990s on multiple criminal charges. In 2008 further action in the criminal matter was halted after they claimed their right to trial within a reasonable time had been breached. They then claimed damages and unpaid salaries.

Having reviewed the evidence Justice Isaacs ruled yesterday that with respect to wages, ‘none of the plaintiffs are entitled to gratuity or pension.’

He said: “Each of the plaintiffs is to be compensated in damages for breach of Article 20(1) of the Constitution. The quantum of such damages are to assessed by the court if not agreed.”

The plaintiffs will have to bear their own legal costs for the matter before the Supreme Court.

The ruling was handed down to the defendants, the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Police.

The four men sought recompense over their arrests and imprisonment on the following charges: Attempted shop breaking, conspiracy to commit shopbreaking, conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to commit an indictable offence, conspiracy to possess prohibited weapons, conspiracy to commit arson, conspiracy to posses dangerous drugs, conspiracy to possess dangerous drugs with intent to supply and conspiracy to commit murder.

They were accused of attempting to break into a drug storage house and conspiring to kill then COP Bernard Bonamy in 1992.

McKenzie was arraigned on the eight charges in 1995, three years after his co-accused.

In June 2008, Senior Justice Jon Isaacs halted further action in the criminal matter after the men filed the motion claiming their right to trial had been breached.

Nearly a year later, the men filed a suit seeking damages and unpaid salaries.

Yesterday, Justice Stephen Isaacs handed his judgment down in the matter that was heard before his court in February.

At that hearing, David Higgins, attorney for the Attorney General and the Commissioner of Police, argued that the suit that was filed had passed the one-year statute of limitations.

However, Roger Gomez II, representing the plaintiffs, said that the men could not file the civil suit while criminal charges still loomed over their heads.

Stubbs, Patton and Brice spent nearly 18 months on remand before being granted bail.

McKenzie had served 40 months in US prison of firearm possession charges.

While McKenzie was the only one of the four constables officially dismissed from the force, the others were placed on half-pay though their contracts expired and there was no evidence of official discharge certificates being given to them.