Identical reports worry Coroner
CORONER FAITH MARSHALL-HARRIS again expressed concern about two identical statements given by two police officers who testified on Monday during the inquest into the death of 23-year-old I’Akobi Maloney.
Sergeant Trevor Reece and Constable Sandra Dottin were the two police officers who visited Marguerita Maloney’s home on June 17, to inform her about the death of her son.
When they took the witness stand they each read individual statements which were so identical that it prompted attorney-at-law Andrew Pilgrim to ask them if they wrote the statements together.
While both officers denied doing so, Coroner Marshall-Harris was very critical about the similarity in police officers’ statements.
“They are identical word for word,” she stated.
“I have noted a Court of Appeal decision which states that police officers on a scene may collaborate as to their statements. However, I still have difficulty. I am seeing a difference between collaborating.
“I cannot see how two people can both have the same perception of an event.
“I have a difficulty when you use the same descriptive language… The facts are the same but you are two different human beings,” the coroner stated.
Pilgrim queried if the police had something to hide.
Question
“I don’t know if they have something to hide. The question becomes if they are colluding and why,” he told the court.
In both Reece and Dottin’s statement they told the court that they visited Marguerita Maloney’s house at Reed Street, The City, on the night of June 17 and enquired from her if she had a son named I’Akobi Maloney and if she knew where he was.
They said that she told them that he had called her earlier in the day and told her that he had resigned from his job and that he felt “down”.
She told him to come home and let them discuss it and he responded that he was in Speightstown.
After her son did not return home she sent someone named “I Man” to Speightstown to look for him.
Cross-examined by Pilgrim, Constable Dottin said she informed Maloney that a man had jumped off a cliff at Land Lock, St Lucy, and that the police had recovered a bag bearing her son’s identification card.
The policewoman said the woman broke down and she had to support her from falling.
Dottin added that Maloney’s other son, Mandela, arrived and he too became hysterical but she told him that he had to be strong for his mother.
The officer stated that she did not invite Maloney to visit the scene because the rescue operation had been called off by Station Sergeant Dale Crichlow.
Tags: Andrew Pilgrim, Constable Sandra Dottin, Court of Appeal decision, Faith Marshall-Harris, Mandela Maloney, Marguerita Maloney, rescue operation called off, Sergeant Trevor Reece, statement, Station Sergeant Dale Crichlow, word for word