Sentencing postponed for cops in Kirkland case

RELATIVES AND colleagues of the three police constables found guilty of the manslaughter in relation to 2012 shooting death of 16-year-old schoolgirl Vanessa Kirkland yesterday turned out in their numbers to offer support, but they were left further dejected after the sentencing was pushed back to May 17.

The rescheduling follows the revelation by attorney-at-law Oswest Senior Smith that the social enquiry report for his client, AnnaKay Bailey, had not been prepared.

He also revealed that similar reports for Andrewain Smith and Durvin Hayles, represented by attorneys-at-law Peter Champagnie and Nadine Guy, respectively, were also not done.

Constables Smith, Hayles, and Bailey were, on February 8, found guilty of manslaughter of Kirkland, then a student at the Immaculate Conception High School in St Andrew, who was shot and killed along Norman Lane in Kingston.

The verdict was handed down by a seven-member jury.

Senior Smith said that the “court [could] be assisted in a material way in the form of the social enquiry report for the three convicted”.

During the trial, prosecutors suggested that the police constables drove on to the road and opened fire on the vehicle without being fired upon.

However, the cops maintained that they acted in self-defence, claiming to have been fired upon first by men who alighted from the vehicle.

The normal range of sentencing for those found guilty of manslaughter is three to 15 years, with a usual starting point of seven years.