Magistrates Chandan and Daly and the daily assault on the poor and powerless

Mar 06, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

On Tuesday morning we staged a picket outside the Providence Magistrate’s Court in support of Colwyn Harding, the youth who cried rape by a police baton while he was in the Timerhi Police Station. That incident has now become a national scandal.
The policeman Harding has accused of sodomizing him with a baton is still on active duty. This brings into question what has become of the policemen who assaulted a fifteen-year-old boy and burned his genitals and the surrounding parts of that area of his body.
While the rank is on active service, the Police Commissioner has reached retirement age. Mr. Leroy Brumell will proceed into private life in April. He must be the happiest man in the world. Under Brumell’s watch, three protestors were shot dead in the Linden electricity hike protest in July 2012 and more than a dozen injured. Brumell kept his job. Brumell has more lives than a cat. He survived the baton rape episode.
Why were we picketing? Harding is charged with assaulting a policeman in the same incident that led to the alleged sodomy. After the case was called, I left the picket line and went into the court. Immediately, I became a source of interest to Magistrate Daly. She sent her court orderly to enquire of me as to the type of eyewear I had on my face.
Magistrate Daly wanted to know if I had donned a pair of sunglasses or wore optometrist lenses. I was appalled at the illogical content of the question and was moved to show contempt to the orderly but realized that the gentleman was just following orders. I did not directly answer the Magistrate’s question but said this to the orderly; “It is stupid for someone to ask such a question in this day and age.” The orderly went to the Magistrate and whatever was said, he didn’t return.
Photo-chromatic lenses have been in existence since the sixties. They are also referred to as, “transitions.” “Tested” glasses are fitted out with photo-chromatic chemicals so that your eyes are shaded from the sun, then in indoor facilities and in the night, the transition to white lenses automatically takes place. What “transitions” do is they remove the burden of wearing sunglasses then have to change to “tested” lenses in the night.
From looking at her, it was clear to me that Magistrate Daly was born decades after “transitions” became part of life so she ought to know what photo-chromatic lenses are.
I spent eleven days in the witness box during in the Bharrat Jagdeo libel trial facing questions from my lawyer and Jagdeo’s, and having to read documents put to me by both set of lawyers and I wore my “transitions” which if I didn’t have, I could not have read what was in front of me. I have been wearing this type of glasses since I was a teen.
The orderly came back to me half an hour after. He wanted me to sit in a particular position in which my body would be in the direct pathway of the Magistrate’s eyes. He told me this. Why was the Magistrate so interested in me? Just for the record, I have been married to the same woman for thirty-five years now, plus President Jagdeo remarked that I am ugly.
I was discomfited by the attention I was getting and rudely brushed off the orderly’s request. He went to the Magistrate. I was prepared for a confrontation but Mr. Nigel Hughes’ absorbing cross-examination of Inspector Lall ensured the Magistrate had to abandon her curiosity in me. I then left the court to prevent further interest in me.
In the picket line, Dr. Melissa Ifill showed me a copy of the Kaieteur News in which the controversial Magistrate, Geeta Chandan, sentenced a semi-homeless man to two years. He escaped from the police after he was arrested by City Constabulary ranks for littering. You see who gets charged for littering? Poor, poor people.
The poor chap escaped, was caught and Chandan sent him to prison for two years. What about three months? One thing is certain; Chandan wasn’t deterred by the controversy she is currently in after her fellow Magistrate harshly sentenced a teenager to five years for assaulting Chandan’s baby left in her care. In the meantime, the Chancellor did say that there will be an inquiry into the helper’s accusation of assault by Chandan. When will that begin?

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Magistrates Chandan and Daly and the daily assault on the poor and powerless

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