'Mickey' Hill cop must face charge - Llewellyn
Published:Thursday | March 17, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn has ruled that the policeman who was controversially hauled before the courts by the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) last month must face a new murder charge originating from her office.
Yesterday, the DPP entered a conditional nolle prosequi (no prosecution) to the murder charge proferred by INDECOM.
The DPP, in setting aside the charge by INDECOM, said that based on her ruling Corporal Malica Reid must now be charged with the murder of Negril businessman Frederick 'Mickey' Hill.
After Reid is charged, he will be taken on a voluntary bill of indictment before the Home Circuit Court where he will stand trial. Hill was shot last year.
Llewellyn said she was able to make her ruling based on the amended forensic report she received recently.
When Reid appeared yesterday in the Savanna-la-Mar Resident Magistrate's Court in Westmoreland, the conditional prosequi was entered. Resident Magistrate Lyle Armstrong, who should have ruled on submissions made last month by the lawyers representing Reid, said based on the DPP's decision, she would not give her ruling. The RM should have ruled whether civilians from INDECOM had the power to charge the policeman. Reid, who was on bail, was told he was free to go.
INDECOM head, attorney-at-law Terrence Williams, had said that under the INDECOM Act he had the power to charge Reid, but the DPP said he did not have the power.
Reid's lawyers, Carolyn Reid-Cameron and Chukwuemeka Cameron, have filed an application in the Supreme Court seeking leave to go to the Judicial Review Court to challenge Williams' decision to charge Reid.