Ambulance no-show delays sentencing
Published:Tuesday | August 17, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
The sentencing of 34-year-old businesswoman Althea Morgan-Carr had to be put off yesterday because the police had no ambulance to transport her from the women's prison at Fort Augusta, St Catherine, to the Home Circuit Court.
The police reported that when they went for Morgan-Carr, she refused to travel in the police radio car. They said Morgan-Carr remarked that if an ambulance was not sent for her, she was not going to court.
When attempts by the police to get an ambulance failed, the case was put off until today for firm arrangements to be made as to when an ambulance will be available to take her to court.
Morgan-Carr, who was convicted last month of conspiracy to murder a policewoman, suffers from a back ailment and cannot sit or stand.
No stretcher
She came to court last Thursday in a police radio car and had to remain in the car for several hours because the police had no stretcher to take her from the car.
Morgan-Carr's lawyer George Soutar had to borrow a stretcher from a home for the aged so that she could be taken into the courtroom.
The police explained that there was only one ambulance and it has to be used islandwide to transport members of the force who can only travel in an ambulance for their medical appointments.
Morgan-Carr and 34-year-old taxi driver Stephen Smith, both of May Pen, Clarendon, were convicted of conspiracy to murder Inspector Lorraine Elleston in 2005.
Justice Carol Lawrence Beswick put off sentencing last Thursday until yesterday because Morgan-Carr said she wanted her doctor to testify about medical condition.