Cop found guilty of vehicular manslaughter in PBR accident

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Near­ly 15 years af­ter 70-year-old Joan Webb was killed in a col­li­sion in­volv­ing a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle, the of­fi­cer who was dri­ving, Bri­an McKen­na, has been con­vict­ed of caus­ing death by dan­ger­ous dri­ving.

McKen­na was found guilty on Wednes­day be­fore Jus­tice Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle at the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain. The ju­ry re­turned a unan­i­mous ver­dict af­ter ap­prox­i­mate­ly one hour of de­lib­er­a­tions.

The pros­e­cu­tion, led by As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Dy­lan Mar­tin, ar­gued that on No­vem­ber 8, 2011, Webb was trav­el­ling in the front pas­sen­ger seat of a car cross­ing the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR) at the Bon Air Gar­dens, Arou­ca, in­ter­sec­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tion, the ve­hi­cle was trav­el­ling north to south on Bon Air Road with a green traf­fic sig­nal in its favour. Be­fore it had ful­ly crossed the PBR, how­ev­er, a marked po­lice ve­hi­cle dri­ven by McKen­na al­leged­ly ran a red light and crashed in­to it.

The im­pact caused the car to flip sev­er­al times be­fore com­ing to rest about 50 feet away on the south­ern side of the PBR. Webb died at the scene, while the oth­er oc­cu­pants of both ve­hi­cles were tak­en for med­ical treat­ment.

The State’s case was that McKen­na failed to ac­ti­vate the ve­hi­cle’s siren or sound its horn. Mar­tin called sev­er­al wit­ness­es, in­clud­ing two pedes­tri­ans who were wait­ing to cross the PBR at the time.

Both wit­ness­es tes­ti­fied that the po­lice ve­hi­cle was trav­el­ling at a high speed with­out a siren or horn be­fore the col­li­sion. One es­ti­mat­ed its speed at about 90 mph.

A Traf­fic Sig­nal Su­per­vi­sor from the Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion al­so tes­ti­fied that the traf­fic lights at the in­ter­sec­tion were func­tion­ing prop­er­ly.

The pros­e­cu­tion fur­ther pre­sent­ed ve­hi­cle in­spec­tion re­ports show­ing that the po­lice ve­hi­cle had no me­chan­i­cal de­fects and that its brakes, hand­brake and horn were in work­ing or­der.

Ju­rors al­so heard that in­ves­ti­ga­tors found no tyre im­pres­sions on the PBR in­di­cat­ing an at­tempt to brake be­fore the col­li­sion.

Al­though the dri­ver of the car in which Webb was trav­el­ling died be­fore the tri­al, his ev­i­dence from the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry was read to the ju­ry. The ve­hi­cle’s back­seat pas­sen­ger had al­so died be­fore the in­quiry, but a state­ment he gave po­lice af­ter the crash was ad­mit­ted in­to ev­i­dence.

Both men had stat­ed that the Bon Air Road traf­fic light was green when the col­li­sion oc­curred.

Dur­ing cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, de­fence at­tor­neys chal­lenged pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness­es, sug­gest­ing that the PBR light was green and that the po­lice ve­hi­cle was trav­el­ling at just 30 km/h.

At the close of the pros­e­cu­tion’s case, McKen­na chose not to give ev­i­dence or be cross-ex­am­ined.

Anan­da Gob­in as­sist­ed Mar­tin in the pros­e­cu­tion.

McKen­na is ex­pect­ed to be sen­tenced on Oc­to­ber 29.