JUSTICE STALLED

Law enforcement sources told Newsday yesterday the delays by labs in England and the United States in returning crucial results are hampering investigations and prosecutions.

They are also impacting negatively on the already poor detection rate by local police. Up to yesterday, the murder toll stood at 226 for the year with a paltry detection rate of 17.7 percent.

Matters awaiting tests from the foreign labs include the murder of Shannon Banfield whose decomposing body was found on December 12 last year at the Charlotte Street, Port-of-Spain compound of IAM and company.

Several items were sent to a lab in England so that DNA evidence could be obtained to assist homicide officers in presenting their case in court, but up to yesterday the results were still in the hands of experts at the British DNA lab.

Police carrying out that probe are awaiting results to ascertain if Banfield was sexually assaulted.

Specimens found on her body were also sent for matching.

Those results are yet to be presented to the investigators.

Although the suspect in that matter has appeared in court a few times, the police have indicated they are not ready to start although not advancing specific reasons for this.

The Homicide Investigations Bureau has also sent specimens to the DNA lab in England in the murder of schoolboy Jesse Beephan whose body was found near the Waterloo Secondary School, Carapichaima on March 22. No results have been forthcoming.

No one has been detained for Beephan’s murder.

Specimens were sent to the same lab in connection with the death of Chaguanas mother of one Sharlene Soomai, 23. Her semi-nude body was found close to her Petersfield home on March 23.

Specimens collected from other murder scenes were also sent to the same lab last year, and there are some dating back to 2015. But the results are yet to be sent to the Homicide Investigations Bureau in Port-of-Spain.

Sources said yesterday that while homicide officers continue to do work on the ground to improve the detection rate especially for murders, they still believe some outstanding cases can be solved with the return of evidence from the DNA samples still tied up in the overseas labs.

Sources revealed yesterday that Government has decided to invest in setting up a DNA lab in this country to make results more readily accessible and to save the country the expense in utilising the foreign facilities.