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| Rennie Dumas |
Former government minister Rennie Dumas is appealing a guilty ruling against him in the Scarborough Magistrates Court on June 3 for unlawfully and maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm against security officer Roger Simon.
On Monday, Dumas’s attorneys Keith Scotland and former attorney general John Jeremie filed the appeal on two main grounds, questioning the credibility of the evidence by the State in the matter.
Senior Magistrate Nanette Forde-John brought the guilty verdict against Dumas, a former MP for Tobago East under the PNM administration, on two charges of assault.
He was ordered to pay fines totaling $18,500, failing which he could face up to three years in jail for both charges.
In their appeal, the defence attorneys are claiming that Dumas is not guilty because “the decision is unreasonable and/or cannot be supported by or having regard to the evidence”.
As to the second ground, the attorneys are claiming that “some other specific illegality substantially affecting the results of the case has been committed in the course of the proceedings in the case”.
The case against Dumas stemmed from a dispute with Simon at Arnos Vale, Plymouth, on June 1, 2011.
Dumas was alleged to have struck Simon in his face with his (Dumas’) licensed firearm, knocking out several of his teeth, over the alleged theft of property belonging to Dumas’ family on land near Arnos Vale.
However, the firearm was never taken for forensic testing and therefore was never established to be the weapon of assault in the incident.
Source:trinidadexpress
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