Janice Allen: Case closed
Published:Monday | July 12, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
The 10-year-old legal battle by Millicent Forbes to get justice in the case of her 13-year-old daughter Janice Allen, who was killed during a shoot-out between gunmen and the police in 2000, is finally over.
Forbes died in hospital last month and a case which she had pending in the Supreme Court was decided last Thursday against her.
Supreme Court Judge Roy Anderson turned down her application for leave to go to the Court of Appeal to challenge a Supreme Court ruling striking out her claim against the director of public prosecutions (DPP).
Forbes, who was backed by the lobby Jamaicans for Justice, had filed a claim in the Supreme Court challenging a ruling by the DPP in November 2009 not to prosecute the policeman who was charged with her daughter's murder. The DPP applied to have the claim struck out and Justice Patrick Brooks granted the application.
Brooks said in April that "it can't be that a person should be forced to go through the rigours of trial when the evidence is insufficient, just to appease a public sense of indignation".
Forbes next applied to the Supreme Court for leave to appeal Brooks' ruling. Attorneys-at-law Richard Small and Shawn Wilkinson, who represented Forbes, contended that the reasons given by the DPP for her decision not to prosecute the policeman were inadequate.
No grounds for continuation
Justice Roy Anderson, after hearing legal arguments from attorneys-at-law Diahann Gordon-Harrison, Jeremy Taylor and Tracy-Ann Johnson, who represented the DPP, dismissed Forbes' application.
Anderson pointed out that it was instructive to note that the main reason given by the DPP for her refusal to reindict was her conviction that the prosecution would not be able to provide evidence which could lead to a successful prosecution. The judge said there was no doubt that there had been considerable public interest in the case, but public interest was not the same as saying that the matter was of great public importance.
It was the judge's finding that "not only is there little chance of succeeding in this appeal, but there is no real prospect thereof".
He said in those circumstances, he must deny the application for leave to appeal.
Allen was shot dead at her gate in Trench Town, Kingston, on April 18, 2000.
Constable Rohan Allen (no relation to the deceased) was charged with Allen's murder but was freed of the charge in March 2004 after a formal verdict of not guilty was returned because of information that a policeman who was a vital witness in the case would not be returning to the island. It later turned out that the information was false.
Forbes took the case to the Privy Council after an application for the verdict to be set aside was rejected locally.
The decision was, however, upheld by the Privy Council, but it recommended that a second trial could be considered for the policeman.
Forbes died at the University Hospital of the West Indies. Members of the JFJ said they were saddened by Forbes' passing.