The United Kingdom Privy Council has recommended that the director of public prosecutions determine whether the policeman who was acquitted in the Janice Allen murder case be reindicted for murder.

The recommendation was made in a judgment handed down yesterday which upheld the decision of the Jamaican courts to refuse an application to go to the Judicial Review Court for an order, quashing a jury's verdict.

Millicent Forbes, the mother of 13-year-old Janice Allen, had asked the Privy Council to determine whether the Jamaican courts were correct in their decision. Forbes was backed by the lobby Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ).

Police Constable Rohan Allen (no relation to the deceased) was freed in March 2004 after a Supreme Court Judge directed the jury to return a formal verdict of not guilty. Allen was shot dead at her gate in Trench Town, west Kingston, on April 18, 2000. The police had reported that Allen was shot during a shoot-out with gunmen.

False information

The acquittal was based on false information to the court that a policeman, who was a vital witness in the case, would not be returning to the island.

Paula Llewellyn, QC, director of public prosecutions, in responding to the ruling, said "in making the decision whether to reindict, I must make a thorough and detailed investigation of the circumstances which led up to the shortening of the trial proceedings, and I must review the entire record of the proceedings held in all the various courts up to the Privy Council".

Llewellyn said she would also have to analyse the relevant law, including case law and Section 20(8) of the Jamaican Constitution which provides the right of an accused to plead autrefois acquit (that he had already been acquitted of the same offence and should not be tried again for it).

JFJ has described the ruling as groundbreaking.

barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com