Teacher’s freak accident trial delayed to May 13

WESTERN BUREAU:

The long-awaited trial of Kerry-Ann Cunningham, the St James teacher who is charged in connection with the death of a student who was killed in a car accident at the Anchovy Primary School in St James in June 2018, was last Tuesday postponed until May 13 because of instructions given for courts to delay jury trials at this time.

Cunningham, who is charged with common-law manslaughter arising from the death of Easton Stapleton, was given the new date and had her bail extended by High Court Justice Glen Brown when she appeared before the St James Circuit Court.

During last Tuesday’s brief court hearing, lead prosecutor Christine Dobson-Spence said that a new trial date would be necessary because of instructions that courts were not to start any trial matters that would require the presence of jurors.

VIRUS MEASURES

Those instructions are in line with new court protocols that were released by Jamaica’s judiciary on March 12 as part of preventative measures against the spread of the COVID-19 infection across the country.

Last Tuesday’s court sitting marked the fourth overall adjournment of Cunningham’s case since she first appeared in the circuit court on September 17, 2019. At that time, her trial did not begin because she had not yet given instructions to her attorney, Morrel Beckford.

The case was then deferred to October 3, but it was further delayed on that date because Beckford was absent from court. The matter was then rescheduled to October 17, at which time Beckford told the court that he needed to take further instructions as he had been newly retained by Cunningham at that point.

It is alleged that at approximately 4 p.m. on June 12, 2018, Cunningham was on the compound of the Anchovy Primary School and was reversing her motor car when she lost control of the vehicle. The car struck and killed young Stapleton before crashing into a wall, a section of which collapsed and injured a vendor.

Cunningham was initially charged with causing death by dangerous driving and made her first court appearance on July 10, 2018. However, the charge was later changed to common-law manslaughter during her committal hearing before parish judge Annette Austin on April 24, 2019.

During the committal hearing, seven witness statements, the accident reconstruction report, and the post-mortem report were admitted into evidence for Cunningham’s trial.