Attorney Gordon Brown freed of obstruction charge

Attorney-at-law Gordon Brown, who was on trial for allegedly obstructing the police's attempts on January 13 to secure a firearm from his client, businessman Michael Issa, has been found not guilty before the St James Parish Court.

Parish Judge Sasha-Marie Ashley handed down the verdict when  Brown appeared in court on Friday.

In outlining her ruling, Ashley said that there was reasonable doubt about what was presented to the court concerning what reportedly transpired at the Freeport Police Station in St James between Brown and the police.

The judgement followed closing arguments from Brown's lawyer, King's Counsel Carolyn Reid-Cameron, and the prosecution at the end of evidence submission on December 6.

At that time, Reid-Cameron had asked the court to uphold a no-case submission which had been made earlier on Brown's behalf, on grounds that the prosecution's case against her client was baseless and without credibility.

Brown's charge and subsequent trial stemmed from a matter involving Issa, who is the stepfather of nine-year-old Gabriel King, the autistic child who was brutally murdered on January 13.

Issa was arrested and charged with negligent loss of a firearm, indecent language, and resisting arrest when he went to make a police report on January 13, hours after his stepson was abducted and killed.

The matter of Issa's licensed firearm, which went missing on December 17, 2021, and was subsequently found, is unrelated to the child's death. The negligent loss of firearm charge was eventually dismissed.

Brown was accused of preventing Issa from being detained by officers at the Montego Bay Police Station's Criminal Investigation Branch office, in connection to the businessman's failure to turn over his firearm to the police.

- Christopher Thomas

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