Decades of distress

Courtney Anderson would have been relieved when an assault case against him was dismissed in 1996, but little did he know that 30 years later he would still be experiencing the recurring nightmare of trying to get his police record cleared so he can move forward with his life unencumbered by the case.

Jamaica’s expungement law allows eligible individuals to have certain criminal charges and/or convictions removed from their records, providing them with an opportunity for a fresh start.

Anderson’s need for such a fresh start came after he was charged on August 5, 1995 by the then Patrick Gardens Police with assault occasioning bodily harm.

The complainant was a passenger on the bus he was driving at the time and his first court date was November 1, 1995.

Anderson said he was driving what was called a “quarter-million bus” from Patrick City/Duhaney Park to downtown Kingston when the incident occurred.

“There is a rail in the bus behind the driver’s seat from floor to roof. A woman came on the bus, and was holding on to the back of the driver’s seat. Every time I step on the brake, the seat rocks, she moves forward,” he recalled. ‘When I reached to Half-Way Tree Park I said, ‘Sorry miss, you can’t hold on to the seat like that. I’m a driver and it’s a driver’s seat and it is going to distract me’.

“She puffs (stands up angrily) and huffing and puffing and still held on. So, I grabbed her hand and told her ‘Hold on to the rail’. She dragged her hand away from me and hit me in the head while I was seated. Still sitting, I hit back with my left hand, and she was hit in the face,” he recounted.

Anderson said he later discovered that the woman’s partner was a policeman and things took a turn for the worse.

“She went for him and they (the woman, the policeman and anther man who was driving) come in a small car. The [Washington] Boulevard was one lane those days. So, I go up to Maverley and I turn the bus back down the Boulevard when I saw what was happening, because she pointed to him and said, ‘See him, dere. Is him lick me inna mi face’. The policeman came on the bus and began to gun butt me in my head while I was driving. The woman and the other man was following behind the bus in the car. I drove the bus to the owner, and the policeman went into the car, and they drove away,” he recounted.

Documents missing

Even though he claimed he was not one for conspiracies, he said he believed the policeman had a hand in the documents for the case going missing.

“That was the first and only time there has been anything physical with me and a woman. Never before, and never again,” Anderson told The Sunday Gleaner last week.

According to him, the case was dismissed as the complainant never turned up at the Half-Way Tree Resident Magistrate Court from November 1995 to 1996 when it was thrown out. He recalled being fingerprinted when he was charged.

But Anderson said he is required to have a clean criminal record so he can get the badge required to take advantage of certain opportunities in his current job as a driver, transporting local and international passengers. Neither his efforts, nor those of a lawyer who looked into the matter on his behalf about a decade ago, have brought him any closer to getting the clean record he is seeking.

His latest attempt was initiated on December 23, 2024.

Anderson paid the $3,000 fee, received a machine generated receipt, and was told to pick up documents at the Police Officers’ Club in St Andrew on January 23, 2025.

Since then, the process has stalled.

Before his 2024 try, some time around 2016 he made his first attempt to clear his police record but ended up consulting the lawyer after that failed with him being given ‘a run around’.

He said he gave the lawyer the documents that were requested but more than a year later, he had still heard nothing.

Futile search

“When I finally found him, he said he couldn’t find the documents I gave him. I had to start all over again. I decided to make another attempt. I made fresh payments in 2023 and started the process all over again. This time, I got the farthest, ‘cause now somebody did call me back from the Criminal Records Office (CRO) after I paid the fees for the report,” he said.

It was not good news.

“We cannot find any record of the dismissal of the case. So go back to Half-Way Tree court and get the record of the dismissal and bring it here,” Anderson recalled being told by a woman who contacted him via a private number to provide him with an update on his application.

He acted on the advice and went to the court, but received more bad news - no reference to the case could be found anywhere.

“The lady searched, and searched, through boxes and boxes of files, and could not find a single thing anywhere,” Anderson bemoaned as he recalled the efforts of the administrator at the courthouse.

After the unsuccessful search, he was told to go back to the CRO, which then sent him back to Half-Way Tree, and the cycle continued until he decided to reach out to the media.

Anderson cannot recall the name of the judge who heard the case back in 1996, but he said he qualifies for automatic expungement, as his incident took place before January 1, 2005, and he had no criminal charges before or since.

Ministry intervenes

Delroy Chuck, minister of justice and constitutional affairs, said this could be uncharted water but promised his ministry’s intervention.

“Unfortunately, most times when persons are charged and taken to court, a fingerprint order is made by the judge with the offence included and eventually collected by the CRO,” Chuck said.

“The usual procedure is that once the charge is dismissed and/or the accused is found not guilty, the fingerprint should be destroyed - in many cases, this is not done. The information from the court is needed to show the charge was dismissed. When the information is not available or outdated by the passage of time, the CRO needs to make a decision what should be done with the record.”

He said if the accused was found guilty, his conviction would be expunged.

“I will ask CRO, in light of the amendment to the Criminal Records (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act, if this is possible,” he promised last week.

Chuck announced earlier this month that the Criminal Records (Rehabilitation of Offenders) (Amendment) Act, 2026 is now a law. The amendment establishes a two-stage framework to address the criminal records of rehabilitated persons.

Despite Chuck’s promise, John Clarke, chairman of Jamaicans for Justice , said Anderson might need to file a lawsuit to get redress.

“If a case is dismissed, it’s the same as if the person was found not guilty. And if it is dismissed, the charges cannot be brought again,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

Citing an administrative error in another case, he said a slip up by the state led to convicted fraudster Ray Morgan being awarded almost $80 million for spending years in lock-up because his appeal documents were misplaced.

“They couldn’t find Ray Morgan’s files until he sued. Now they owe him $79 million. The current situation is grounds for lawsuit,” said Clarke.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com