A policeman who was sentenced in 2007 to 12 months' imprisonment for larceny of a motor car has been freed by the Court of Appeal.

Constable Gairy Reid, who was on bail pending the outcome of his appeal, was freed following submissions made by defence lawyer Valerie Neita-Robertson.

Neita-Robertson argued that Reid should not have been convicted because there was no nexus between the stolen motor car and the crashed motor car which Reid had sold to a businessman who operated a junkyard.

The Crown conceded there was no link between the motor vehicles, and the Court of Appeal quashed Reid's conviction, set aside the sentence and entered a verdict of acquittal.

Neita-Robertson filed several grounds of appeal, contending that the resident magistrate erred in not accepting the no-case submission that Reid should have been freed because there was no evidence linking him to the stolen car.

Senior Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey had convicted Reid in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court in June 2007.

The Crown led evidence at the trial that a motor car stolen in 2003 was subsequently sold to a businessman in 2004 as wreckage. The businessman had the motor car repaired and then sold it to a used-car dealer, who was subsequently informed by the police in 2006 that the vehicle was stolen.

Reid said at his trial that he had purchased the motor car, and after it crashed he sold the wreckage to the businessman. He said the motor car he saw outside the courthouse was not the one he sold to the businessman.

Neita-Robertson argued, on appeal, that Reid should not have been convicted because the prosecution did not call the businessman to identify the motor car as the one Reid sold to him as wreckage.

barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com

'The Crown conceded there was no link between the motor vehicles, and the Court of Appeal quashed Reid's conviction.'