Two men accused of burning death of three children 20 years ago, freed

   

Two men who were accused of the burning death of three children in a house in Portmore, St. Catherine, 20 years ago, have been freed.

 

Rohan McCarthy and Ricardo Britton were charged with the September 2004, murder of five-year-old twin boys Tyrique and Tyrone Henry, and three-year-old Moesha.

 

The men swiftly exited the dock inside the Home Circuit Court Wednesday afternoon after Justice Leighton Pusey told them they were free to go.

 

The men were charged in 2006 and sentenced to life imprisonment in February 2010.

 

The Crown led evidence at the trial in the Home Circuit Court that the men threw gasolene around the three-bedroom wooden house and lit it with a bottle torch about 1:15 a.m.

 

The witness said she heard what sounded like liquid being poured around her house.

 

She said when she looked through a window, she saw the two accused in her yard.

 

She said she'd had a dispute with the men the previous day, and that they had threatened to burn her house.

 

Mr. McCarty was to serve 17 years before being eligible for parole, while Mr. Britton was to serve 14 years.

 

In 2012, the Court of Appeal ordered a re-trial.

 

Two years later the jury failed to reach a verdict.

 

A third trial was scheduled for November 27, 2023 but failed to get off the ground.

 

Prior to handing down the verdict Wednesday afternoon, Justice Leighton Pusey explained some of the factors taken into consideration.

 

These included the unavailability of witnesses, unavailability of the transcript for the first trial and the lack of information about when it would be available, the period of time between the alleged offence and the time the trial would have been completed.

 

Justice Pusey made it clear that freeing the men was not an acquittal, pointing out that the evidence was sufficient to set out a prima facie case against them.

 

But before ordering a permanent stay of the trial, he said the delay severely prejudice the accused men and that a fair trial could not proceed. 

 

Attorney Keith Bishop, who has been practicing for 28 years, spent the last 20 years representing Richardo Britton. 

 

"Although the judge was careful enough to say he was not relying on the constitutional provisions, in my view, the common law provision that he relied on runs right alongside the constitutional provisions, because every Jamaican citizen, based on the Constitution, they're entitled to a fair trial within a reasonable time. And this is what the judge used to say that, because of the delay, 20 years, the accused men would not have been able to get a fair trial. And the reasonable time issue was long gone having arrived at 20 years," he suggested. 

 

Mr. Britton was also represented by attorneys Naiem Bishop and Joni Pinnock.

 

Prior to Friday's ruling, attorney Lloyd McFarlane, who represented Rohan McCarthy, cited the Adidja Palmer et al case in his application to stay the trial. 

 

"I specifically used a section of it that related, in particular, to the fact that my alibi witness was absent, because in the Adidja Palmer case, an important witness called Major, his absence was so significant that the presiding judge, Justice Marva McDonald Bishop, used words to indicate that this would have put the defence at a considerable disadvantage, and this was the case here," he pointed out.  

 

Mr. McCarthy was also represented by Russell Stewart.