Prosecutor Sophia Thomas gets stay to pay legal costs in suspension case
Published:Wednesday | December 28, 2022 | 3:21 PM
Prosecutor Sophia Thomas, who was suspended from practising for six months effective November 1, was last week granted a stay of the $400,000 legal costs imposed by the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council (GLC).
Court of Appeal Judge Carol Edwards granted the stay, which will remain in effect until January 10 when there will be an inter-parties hearing.
Thomas, who was on secondment to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in the Turks and Caicos Islands, resigned from that position because of the committee's ruling in September.
Attorney-at-law Hugh Wildman said today that Thomas resumed her position in Jamaica last month as assistant director of public prosecutions at the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
He said, “the six-month suspension by the committee would not affect her job in the public service because under the Legal Profession Act she does not need to be a member of the Bar to practise law in the public service, once she is qualified as an attorney-at-law.”
The committee found that Thomas violated canons of professional ethics while prosecuting a fraud case in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court in 2017.
The ruling arose from a complaint made in 2019 by National Commercial Bank branch manager Lowell Spence who was freed of fraud charges after Director of Public Prosecutors Paula Llewellyn offered no further evidence in the case.
Spence complained to the GLC that Thomas used false evidence and /or participated in the creation of evidence she knew to be false.
Thomas has denied the allegations.
Wildman says Thomas has filed several grounds of appeal against the committee's ruling.
Thomas was ordered by the committee to pay $100,000 in legal costs to Spence and $300,000 in legal costs to the GLC.
She was also ordered to participate in two ethics courses.
- Barbara Gayle
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