A prison officer cleared of misconduct in public office after he was caught smuggling ganja into Northward Prison said on Thursday he wanted to return to his job.
Derron Watson, 51, said, “This is a vindication for me and my family and I just want to get on with my life.”
He was speaking outside the Grand Court minutes after the jury accepted he had only taken the drugs into the prison after a mystery gunman held a gun to his head in his garden.
Watson said the man, who was masked, had threatened his life and the lives of his family unless he delivered the 55 grams of the drug to prison inmate Tareek Ricketts and that he acted under duress.
He added, “I did nothing wrong and I want my job. My interest was the prison service and becoming the director of prisons. I still want that.”
Watson earlier told the court the gunman had appeared as he worked in his garden on 27 Feb. last year. He took the drugs into the prison the next day.
He added outside the court, “There is a gunman out there and the police have not done enough to catch him.”
Watson, who has been suspended since the incident, said, “How do I feel? For 15 months my life has been a living hell. I want to get back to work.”
Justice Emma Peters highlighted after the verdict was announced that Watson had been suspended on full pay after he was charged.
She said he had shown “disdain” for his “peers and the prison service” in his statements about the case.
Peters questioned whether it was “relevant” that Watson should resume his employment with the prison service and that the authorities might want to consider that view.
Peters added, “But I wish him very well in the future and he clearly has a very supportive family.”
She also ordered that the ganja recovered at Northward, which had been contained in four packages, should be destroyed.
Andre Wedderburn, who appeared for the Crown, earlier in the hearing insisted that Watson had not acted under duress and should be convicted on the charge of misconduct in a public office.
He said, “This case is not about sympathy; not sympathy for the defendant, not sympathy for the attorneys in this matter, because that’s not important.”
Wedderburn highlighted inconsistencies in Watson’s statements about the alleged gunpoint incident.
He said, “At one point in his evidence, he says 4pm he went to his garden and a lone gunman that he didn’t know came and pointed a gun at him.”
Wedderburn added that the time the incident was said to have happened had moved from late afternoon to night as had the precise location.
He said, “The story keeps shifting, the part of the yard keeps shifting.”
Wedderburn asked, “What would cause you to tell the police this incident happened at night when it happened during the day?”
He quoted a line from a poem by Scottish writer, Sir Walter Scott: “What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”
Wedderburn insisted, “It’s a lie, it’s untruthful, it’s a make-believe story. He has made up this story and when you make up a story, that’s the ‘tangled web’ when you first practice to deceive.”
Watson took the drugs into the prison and handed them over to Ricketts as he did maintenance work in the duty clerk’s offices.
Wedderburn dismissed evidence from Lee Andrew Buckley, a neighbour of Watson’s, who earlier testified that he had seen a man pointing a gun at Watson and pushing something towards him.
Wedderburn said Buckley had never gone to Watson’s house afterwards or called to see if he was all right.
He added, “This story about a gunman coming into the yard is not true. The defendant is guilty — this duress thing does not apply.”
But Amelia Fosuhene, who appeared for Watson, on Wednesday questioned why Buckley would lie under oath.
She told the court that Buckley had “no skin in this game” and had “nothing to gain by coming to court”.
Fosuhene added that the jury had to acquit if they were “not sure, if there was reasonable doubt”.
She added the facts in the case were agreed and Watson had admitted he had taken the ganja into the prison.
But Fosuhene said, “He is hard-working and he is trustworthy. He has worked for 22 years without a problem. His reputation is unblemished, his character is good.”
She added that prosecution suggestions that Watson had an escape route if the threat was real and that he could have informed prison authorities and police about the gunman were unrealistic.
Fosuhene said a man in Watson’s position, who had testified he was warned by the gunman that he had informants in Northward and the police, would have difficulty placing trust in others to protect “the people you love the most”.
She said, given his record as a prison officer, there would have to be a very powerful reason for him to act unlawfully.
Fosuhene asked, “What would make a man like that all of a sudden step outside of himself after 22 years of service?”
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