Aaron Kenroy Solomon was sentenced last week to four months imprisonment after being found in contempt of court for threatening a witness in a murder trial.
The maximum that could have been imposed was six months. Justice Alex Henderson said he thought the sentence in a typical case of threatening a witness should be three to seven years.
He then suggested a way for that sentencing range to be available to the court. In the future, such offences should be prosecuted as attempting to obstruct the course of justice, the judge said.
Crown Counsel Nicola Moore, who brought the evidence against Solomon, said it was true that threats to witnesses were becoming a problem.
Justice Henderson replied: ‘It is true a good number of cases have been dismissed for lack of evidence in the last three or four years. Some of them were murder cases. And it’s attributable solely to the threats uttered to witnesses, in my opinion.’
The case of Solomon was different, he continued. He accepted Defence Attorney Nicholas Dixey’s submission that Solomon regretted his remark almost as soon as he said it.
The evidence pertained to an incident in East End on 24 October 2007 during the trial of Trevino ‘TJ’ Bodden. Bodden was charged with and subsequently convicted of murdering two brothers, Brenard Scott and Renold Roy Pearson.
Both men died of gunshot wounds received on the night of 2 November 2006 near their mother’s home off Fiddler’s Way.
A witness to the shooting told the court last week that he gave his evidence on behalf of the prosecution on 23 October. The next morning he had a conversation with two women about how the case was going.
The witness said as he was talking with the women, he saw Aaron coming off the hill. He said Aaron heard him talking about the case. He continued his way up the hill as Aaron came down and the two nearly brushed.
Then Aaron said ‘More shots gonna lick.’ The witness said he thought he would be the next one to get killed. He told Aaron to repeat it again, but Aaron replied ‘No, cuz you want to see me go to jail again.’
The witness said he felt threatened because he had given evidence and Aaron was TJ’s best friend.
Aaron also gave evidence. He said he was talking to a Rasta man and the witness turned and asked him what he was saying. ‘I told him don’t mix me up with this thing.’
Questioned by Ms Moore he agreed he had been to prison for a similar offence. That was why he had tried to avoid the witness – because he didn’t want to go to prison again. Asked how going down the hill was avoiding the witness, Aaron said he wasn’t avoiding him, he was avoiding being in any conversation.
The court heard the statements made by the two women whom the witness said he had been talking to, but Justice Henderson said the women’s statements did not corroborate or contradict the witness’s evidence. He said it was dangerous to convict on the evidence of one person, but that evidence was plausible and nothing was brought out in cross-examination to contradict it. In contrast, Aaron Solomon’s evidence was somewhat confused.
In arriving at sentence, the judge said Solomon was probably frustrated at the course his friend’s trial was taking. It was probably a mitigating factor that the threat was uttered after the witness gave evidence, rather than before.
Mr. Dixey said Solomon has been in custody since January and he asked for that time to count towards sentence. The judge agreed.
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