Privy Council to determine sentence of ex-policeman

LAW LORDS of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council will on January 23, hear the appeal of former La Brea policeman Earl Williams against the local Appeal Court increase of his sentence for rape from 25 to 30 years. The Privy Council will hear arguments from Williams’ lawyers as to why the Appeal Court ought not to have automatically increase the jail term by five years. Williams, now 51, was found guilty and sentenced by Justice Clebert Brooks in the San Fernando High Court in 1984, to 25 years in jail for raping a woman inside the La Brea Police Station. The judge ordered that Williams be placed in solitary confinement for one month within the first six months of the sentence.

In 1994, attorneys representing Williams sought leave of the Appeal Court to appeal against the severity of the sentence. At that hearing, former chief justice Clinton Bernard, former judge Lloyd Gopeesingh and current Appeal Court Judge Roger Hamel-Smith, dismissed the application for leave. But in doing so, the judges proceeded to increase Williams’ sentence from 25 to 30 years. One of the grounds of appeal filed in the Privy Council is that the Appeal Court sentence was increased without Williams’ attorneys being given an opportunity to put forward arguments against the severity of the sentence. The State is challenging Williams’ appeal at the Privy Council through its London solicitor Charles Russell. Barristers Julien Knowles instructed by Leigh de and Company, together with local attorney  Learie Alleyne-Forte, are representing Williams.