A man accused of killing two people in two separate collisions is still unable to enter pleas in either case, more than two years after the incidents, due to an outstanding mental health report.
Tarrick Kevin Crawford, 29, of West Bay, has been charged with the deaths of Chuck Elvis Ebanks and Shayne Ewart.
Crawford was the rider of a motorcycle that struck and killed Ebanks in November 2020 while he was working as a member of a post-Tropical Storm Eta clean-up team. Ebanks was 53 years old at the time.
Two months later, Crawford was the driver in a high-speed collision that claimed the life of Shayne Ewart.
Ewart, who was the registered owner of the green Honda, was in the front passenger seat of the car at the time of the collision. He was 25 years old.
In February this year, the Grand Court was told that an initial psychiatric report found Crawford unfit to enter pleas, due to “his slow capability of information processing he would find it difficult to concentrate on the proceedings and so not be considered fit to plead…”
If the findings of the report are accepted, Crawford could be found not guilty by reason of diminished responsibility.
During that hearing, Crawford’s attorney explained that before such a verdict could be reached, another report would have to be commissioned.
However, it has been two months since that hearing and Crawford has failed to complete the psychiatric evaluation for the second report – which prompted the judge to intervene.
“I am making it a condition of your bail that you must surrender yourself to police, who are to attend your house and take you to compete the mental health evaluation,” explained Justice Cheryll Richards on Friday, 28 April, before releasing Crawford on bail.
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