(CMR) A charge of failing to provide a breath test against a senior magistrate was dismissed yesterday after the Magistrate Foldats ruled the police officer who arrested him was biased.
Cayman Islands magistrate Valdis Foldats was sitting in Bermuda to hear the traffic case against Khamisi Tokunbo (65). He found that Tokunbo's detention after a car crash was illegal because Colin Mill, the arresting officer, did not have “an honest subjective belief” that he had reasonable grounds to make the arrest.
Mr Foldats said Mr Mill’s bias against Mr Tokunbo had tainted his investigation. Tokunbo had denied refusing a breathalyzer test after he was arrested following the crash in Paget parish on January 19.
Foldats said that the arrest of Tokunbo was illegal before dismissing the charge.
The court previously heard that police were called to the crash, near the public entrance to Elbow Beach, where they found Tokunbo’s car “completely off the road”.
Tokunbo said at the scene that he was not the driver.
But Magistrate Foldats, who heard arguments from Mark Diel for the Crown, and Charles Richardson for the defence, at a number of sittings this month, found that the arresting officer was biased against Tokunbo.
Tokunbo and another man, Allen Robinson, 64, were taken into police custody following the accident when the driver lost control and plunged down an embankment.
The men were helped out of the car by a passerby and the second man was taken to hospital for treatment of minor injuries, police reported at the time.
Robinson pleaded guilty in court in May to not providing a breathalyzer test and was fined US$1,000 and disqualified from driving for 18 months by Magistrate Craig Attridge.
It is understood Tokunbo, who has been a magistrate since 2005, has not sat on the bench since his arrest shortly after the incident. Government House has repeatedly failed to confirm his professional status.
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