... Accused cabbie strengthens defence team
Saturday’s double funeral came two days after the accused taxi driver, who is also a senior deacon in the Seventhday Adventist Church, strengthened his defence team which is being led by senior counsel Lambert Johnson, Faith Salmon and now Shanique Somerville.
The lawyers in court on Thursday revealed that they were now in possession of a video recording of the accident that has since gone viral and is vital in their defence to exonerate their client from the indictments the state has placed on him.
According to Johnson, the defence is relying on, among other things, the statement from at least one witness from the truck who admitted that it was in fact going quite fast when Rodney’s vehicle collided with it.
The court also heard via the investigating officer that the truck involved in the deadly accident has been returned to the owners.
That came even as Rodney’s lawyers had previously pointed fingers at the truck driver, noting then that he would be called upon to bear some amount of responsibility as the case was in the civil division of the country’s justice system.
Johnson told presiding judge Justice Courtney Daye that he was perplexed and puzzled that the police, through their various departments, only carried out analytical examinations on the black box of his client’s vehicle and not on the truck that was also involved in the collision.
Responding, Daye said it was incumbent on the police to retrieve the truck from its owners in the public interest. He argued that this request for the black box on the truck be examined from last December and that two months after the matter remains the same.
Another four months has been given for the prosecution to complete its case. The new date is set for June 7.
The police reported that Lavecia and her mother; Oneil Allen and his mother, 65-year-old Angela Samuel, both of Mount Edgecombe; and 54-year-old Janet Thompson of McAlpine, also in Westmoreland died in the accident.
It is reported that, about 3:30 pm on November 13, the five people and another passenger were aboard a grey Toyota Noah being driven by Rodney when the minivan collided with a truck, which was travelling in the opposite direction.