Court orders shot patron back to GPHC but hospital refuses to admit

Mar 28, 2009 News

…Wanted man still to be charged

Erasto Roberts leaving the hospital after doctors refused to readmit him.

Despite a High Court order granted by Justice Roxanne George-Wiltshire, doctors at the Georgetown Public Hospital refused to admit Erasto Roberts the New Court Yard Shooting victim, yesterday.
He is now at the Brickdam lock ups since it was too late to have him admitted to the Camp Street jail.
According to sources, the doctors at the institution refused to admit Roberts because they found nothing “life threatening” about his present condition.
The source further explained that Roberts was brought to the hospital yesterday and doctors explained in detail to Roberts and the police rank who had accompanied him to the hospital that absolutely nothing was wrong with him.

Justice Roxanne George-Wiltshire had yesterday ordered that Erasto Roberts be readmitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital pending further medical treatment after Roberts’s attorney, Basil Williams, filed a Habeas Corpus in the High Court yesterday.
Williams argued that the state was required to produce a medical certificate from the Georgetown Public Hospital that Roberts was properly discharged.
However the state failed to produce the medical certificate and the order was granted in the defendant’s favour.

The court order had stipulated that Roberts be brought to court yesterday then taken back to the hospital. He is to be brought again before Justice George on Monday in the High Court.
Yesterday when the matter was called before Magistrate Hazel Octive-Hamilton at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court, attorney for the defendant told the court that Roberts was shot on Main Street and was left lying on the road in an unconscious state.
Williams said that his client was picked up by a friend and taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital where he immediately underwent emergency surgery.

According to Williams while his client was been treated at the hospital detectives searched the car, which was used to transport Roberts, in the hospital compound. A firearm was found under the seat of the car. Williams stated that car in which Roberts was in had five other males in it on the day in question. He contended that the car was never found in Roberts’s possession.
The lawyer further stated that police had detained another suspect but that suspect has since been released and his client was the one who was charged.
Williams said that on Thursday last Roberts was prematurely taken from the Hospital and brought before the Acting Chief Magistrate without his knowledge and was charged and remanded.
“They took a sick man from the hospital and brought him to court without his attorney’s knowledge” Williams posited.

Magistrate Hazel Octive-Hamilton, yesterday, proceeded to follow the judge’s order and stated that the accused be readmitted to the hospital.
The magistrate however stated that the order did not stipulate whether or not bail was an issue. Bail was denied and the accused is expected to make another court appearance on June 29.
Abdul Imran Khan, another suspect in the shooting, was also wanted in connection with discharging a loaded firearm. Khan, a resident of Campbellville, was accompanied by his attorney. He too is being detained at the Brickdam Police Station.

In a twist of events on Thursday, after Roberts was already remanded to prison he was taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital for observation.
After about a half of an hour in the Accident and Emergency Unit at the Georgetown Public Hospital, doctors at the institution told Roberts that he was properly discharged and that his injuries were not “life threatening” enough for him to be readmitted to the hospital.
Roberts was reportedly involved in an altercation with another man at around 02:30 hrs on Sunday when he was shot in the stomach.

The argument allegedly started in the New Court Yard nightspot and ended on Main Street.
Also wounded were Joseph Medford, 45, who was shot in the left knee; and Jamal Douglas, 22, of Turkeyen, East Coast Demerara, who was shot in the foot.
According to the police, a South Ruimveldt resident who took Roberts to the GPHC was detained after an unlicensed Taurus pistol, with six matching rounds, was found in his car.