Buckfield cop released - Another to know fate soon

Carl Gilchrist, Gleaner Writer

THE RULING of Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn on the Buckfield shooting is being kept close to the chest by law-enforcement officials.

Llewellyn told The Gleaner yesterday that she made her ruling on Thursday night, but refused to say whether instructions had been given for criminal charges to be brought against two policemen who were taken into custody following the shooting death of a St Ann man.

"The matter is now in the hands of the police," the DPP said.

Although the police are tight-lipped on the matter, it appears that the policeman who allegedly shot Ian Lloyd in the abdomen could be in for some trouble.

"We will make an announcement on Tuesday," Assistant Commissioner of Police Les Green said when asked about the fate of the detective sergeant involved.

The airing of an amateur video recording on television last week prompted Commissioner of Police Owen Ellington to order the arrest of the policemen. The recording shows a man in plain clothes, alleged to be the sergeant now in custody, firing a shot in the direction of the victim.

A post-mortem conducted on the body on Thursday by a government pathologist revealed that Lloyd's death was caused by a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

Meanwhile, the constable who was involved in the beating of Lloyd in Buckfield was released from custody Thursday night following the DPP's ruling.

However, he may be back behind bars when the ruling by the DPP is made public Monday evening or Tuesday.

"Definitely not!" Green, lead investigator with the Major Investigation Task Force (MIT), which is probing the case, responded when asked by The Gleaner if the constable had been cleared.

Green suggested that the ruling by the DPP would guide the next course of action for the MIT.

Oswest Senior Smith, legal counsel for the constable, was relieved that his client had been released.

"Even if he is not (cleared), the authorities cannot hold him in custody. The ball is now in their court regarding what to do," the lawyer told The Gleaner on Friday.

The constable's release came just hours after his attorney-at-law, Senior Smith, sought his release through the St Ann Resident Magistrate's Court on the grounds that the police had no basis to continue holding him.

The constable, the court was told by Green, gave a statement to the MIT that he had been instructed by a superior officer to strike the victim as he lay on the ground.

This, the court was further told, was in an effort to disarm Lloyd of broken bottles with which he was armed and which he was using as weapons.

St Ann Resident Magistrate Carolyn Tie had ruled Thursday that the two policemen held in relation to the incident, the constable and a sergeant, be charged or released by next Tuesday, August 10. The police are appealing for eyewitness to the Buckfield incident as well as the person who made the recording to contact them.