Auxiliary police officer Morgan Dixon has been sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for two years, after admitting he changed the start date of his vehicle insurance documents.
The Summary Court heard that Dixon had been stopped by two patrolling police constables on 22 July last year after they observed a heavy tint on the windows of his Toyota Tacoma truck on Shamrock Road.
Crown prosecutor Andre Wedderburn told the court on Monday, 25 May, that Dixon had identified himself as a police officer to the constables, who tested the window tints, and asked him for his vehicle documentation. He handed over his driving licence, but said he did not have the other documents with him.
When they checked, the officers found that the truck’s licence had expired on 29 Jan. 2024 and the insurance had run out on 21 June 2024. Dixon claimed he had paid for his vehicle insurance and had been on his way to pick up a physical copy of the document from the insurance company, Wedderburn told Magistrate Angelyn Hernandez.
The officers warned Dixon of intended prosecution and advised him to bring the insurance documentation to the police station.
Later that day, the court heard, Dixon went to CG BritCay to get insurance, and asked if the policy could be backdated to a day earlier, but was told this was not possible.
Three days later, Wedderburn said, Dixon attended the police’s traffic office, where he indicated that he’d had valid insurance at the time he was stopped, but did not have a physical copy to produce. He showed an officer a digital certificate of insurance on his phone, which indicated the policy was valid from 21 July 2025 to 21 July 2026. Dixon sent the officer the document electronically and it was later emailed to the investigating officer and to Dixon’s immediate supervisor.
Describing the incident as “opportunistic and a one-off offence”, the prosecution counsel initially recommended sentencing guidelines to the chief magistrate that ranged from a fine to a term of community service.
However, the chief magistrate pointed out that Dixon’s position as a police officer surely was an aggravating factor in the offence, and she told Wedderburn, “It’s deliberate, it’s not opportunistic.”
Wedderburn agreed, accepting that there had been an abuse of a position of trust and responsibility, and adjusted his submission on the sentencing guidelines, which indicate a custodial sentence or community service.
Defence lawyer Stacy-Ann Kelly, acting for Dixon, told the court her client had accepted responsibility for his actions at the earliest opportunity. For that early guilty plea, she said, he was entitled to the customary one-third discount in his ultimate sentence.
She noted he was a man of good character, with no previous convictions, and that his actions had caused him “considerable embarrassment”.
“We submit that the offences are entirely out of character and arose from poor judgement in a moment of panic, rather than from a sustained or deliberate course of criminal conduct,” Kelly said.
She added that Dixon wanted to apologise to the court, as well as to the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service “as he understands that his behaviour has arguably brought the institution into disrepute”.
In passing sentence for the offence of uttering a false document, Hernandez told Dixon, “You were an auxiliary officer at the time this offence occurred; having been stopped a few days before, then taking steps to ensure that the document was not correct, that was … a deliberate act. It wasn’t an impulsive act at all. … It took time, it took some thought, and it was a deliberate action.
“Those are all reprehensible actions for someone who has sworn to uphold the law. In those circumstances, I find that the expectation of integrity and accountability has really been lost”.
The magistrate, giving a full discount for his early guilty plea and taking his “substantial personal mitigation” into account “because your life is going to change now with this”, she sentenced Dixon to six months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years.
Dixon also faced a number of traffic offences. For driving without insurance, Hernandez disqualified him from driving for 12 months, and fined him a total of $1,360 for not having insurance and driving without registration or a certificate of roadworthiness.
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