Cabbie charged over fatal Westmoreland crash further remanded

The Westmoreland cabbie seeking bail on five counts of causing death by dangerous driving has been further remanded until December 6.

The prosecution, in opposing bail on Wednesday, argued that Delroy Rodney, 47, of Belmont district in the parish, is not fit to be released, claiming he will not honour the conditions.

The prosecution was responding to a bail application made by senior defence attorneys Lambert Johnson and Faith Salmon on November 15 on behalf of the accused. 

The Crown also argued that Rodney was reckless in the manner in which he drove the vehicle, having decided to drive fast on a wet roadway.

“The passengers of the bus, they trusted him to take them home safely, and he did not,” the prosecution argued.

The Crown submitted that the only care that Rodney would have exercised was care for himself, hence the reason why he and the passenger who sat directly behind him are still alive

However, Johnson countered, arguing that the Crown's arguments against bail are without factual foundation.

“To suggest that a man of God, Mr Rodney, was heartless and reckless is a bit much. That cannot be the foundation for objection to bail,” he argued.

He said the defence acknowledged that people lost their loved ones and sympathises with them. 

“We are not insensitive to the grief that is being experienced, but the principal issue to be considered by the court is whether Mr Rodney is a flight risk,” he countered.

According to defence counsel, Rodney is prepared to apologise to the families of those who have lost loved ones.

“Five lives were lost and at the appropriate time Mr Rodney will do his apologies. We are not here to engage in a pity party, this is a court of law and the reality is that when persons are involved in an accident, most persons take a temporary flight, pondering what to do,” Johnson stated.

Presiding Judge Steve Walters revealed that he will await the reports of the mechanical examinations of the Toyota Noah and its black box to see what it says about reckless driving.

Those reports are scheduled to be ready within another week.

“I will not await the AR (accident and reconstruction) report, nor the postmortem, but I would like to see the examiner's reports for the vehicle and black box,” Walters said. 

“Let me have those two documents and see if this will help me to strike the balance,” he countered.

Rodney, who is the head deacon of the Belmont Seventh Day Adventist Church, is charged with five counts of causing death by dangerous driving, which stemmed from the deaths of 15-year-old schoolgirl Lavecia Forrester and her 39-year-old mother Petrina Wallace, of Gordon district, Whitehouse, Westmoreland, Oneil Allen and his mother, 65-year-old Angela Samuel, both of Mount Edgecombe, and 54-year-old Janet Thompson of McAlpine also in Westmoreland. 

It is reported that at about 3:30 p.m. on Monday, November 13, all five were aboard a grey Toyota Noah that collided with a truck. 

The Noah was travelling in the opposite direction.

The five were transported to hospital where they were pronounced dead.

- Albert Ferguson

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