Case stalled

SINCE BEING placed before the court for a preliminary enquiry related to a murder charge, Mervin Cameron and his attorneys say that the case has stalled. Cameron claims, too, that to date, none of the prosecution witnesses has given evidence at the preliminary enquiry, which was adjourned in October 2016 with no date for a resumption.

Those assertions did not escape the attention of Justice Sykes, who pointed to other troubling features of the case.

“It is to be noted that neither Mr Cameron nor the Attorney General indicated the exact date Mr Cameron was charged; when he was first placed before the court, the number of times the matter has been before the court, and what occurred on each occasion,” Sykes wrote.

Sykes said that in the circumstances, he was of the view that a stay of the preliminary enquiry was appropriate.

“A consequential order is that the Crown cannot seek to try Mr Cameron for any offence, whether by indictment or information or any other mode of trial whatsoever, for any offence arising out of the facts of the case which led to him being charged with the offence of murder,” he wrote in his dissenting judgment.

However, his colleagues, Justice Anderson and Justice Fraser, took a different view, declaring that a stay of the enquiry is the most “extreme remedy”, which should be a last resort that is only employed if no other remedy is suitable.