On November 16th, PUP media personality Vaughan Gill went to the police to complain that Mayor Zenaida Moya had assaulted him. The Mayor filed a counter complaint and the police gathered as many as four other statements form police officers on the scene. Add statements from Moya’s personal security and council employees and police had 8 accounts. All that was bundled in a file and sent to the DPP Lutchman Sooknandan for review. And on November 28th, he issued his findings. So according to the ultimate legal authority: are there sufficient grounds to charge Moya for assaulting Vaughan Gill. Here’s what Sooknandan found.
Jules Vasquez Reporting,
We all saw what happened but the DPP did not review video evidence, he reviewed statements made by police officers and UDP friendly witnesses.
It is a question of who aggressed who. Moya says Vaughan Gill came up in her face, and Gill says Moya attacked him. But the DPP found that, “the evidence of the witnesses seems more convincing that Vaughan Gill was the aggressor rather than Zenaida Moya.” He concludes that, “it is reasonable to draw the inference that since Vaughan Gill admits he was recording with a video camera that he was the one who approached Zenaida Moya."
The DPP goes on to write: “in fact, the evidence from the statements
_indicates that he approached her in a hostile manner and was calling her, “a bitch.” And what about Gill’s busted lip – which according to the medico legal form was all of half a centimetre? Well the DPP concludes that “Zenaida Moya could not have caused injury to Gill as it is obvious that when he was escorted to his vehicle on St. Thomas Street, he had not at that time sustained any injury.” Sooknandan concludes this based on the statement of Corporal Darrell Usher, who escorted Gill to his vehicle and away from the scene where he was being threatened. He says Gill didn’t tell him about any injury, and neither did he see one.
And so the DPP concludes that: ‘it is doubtful whether Gill sustained the wound at the time he alleges.” He also concludes that the Mayor “acted in self defense in respect to the aggression by Vaughan Gill towards her.” And that “there was no intent on her part to injure Vaughan Gill by pushing away the camera.” And so he directs the police that no charges are to be laid against the Mayor.
That closes the case in the criminal courts – but in the court of public opinion the PUP will keep using this to try and win a verdict against the UDP.
And while there were 8 statements, there was no physical evidence because Sooknandan reports that police were unable to get the camera from Gill to use as evidence. He claimed in his statement that the Mayor broke the Sony high definition camera. And while Sooknandan’s finding on Gill’s aggression may seem to be a sort of shaming for the ruling PUP who have maintained that Moya assaulted Gill, we gather that the politicos prefer that Moya not be charged, so as not to make her appear publicly as the victim of a bullish Police Department.
