Grenada’s leading constitutional legal expert, Dr. Francis Alexis QC, has come forward to join the legal team representing the wife of the battered Evan Smith who is now facing possible charges by the police in connection with last Thursday’s incident at Fort Jeudy in which her husband was beaten by a white family over an incident involving a dog.
Sources told THE NEW TODAY that Dr. Alexis contacted attorney-at-law, Derick Sylvester, the lawyer representing Nicole Smith to offer his services to help fight the case on her behalf against the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF).
A well-placed source said that the leading QC made arrangements with Sylvester to meet him this morning at the South St. George Police Station this morning to go in with Smith to face the police who indicated that they intend to question her and then lay charges.
Sylvester announced yesterday (Friday) that a female Corporal of police had telephoned him for Nicole Smith to come into the station as she is facing a charge of trespass and either using threatening or obscene language.
The local population became incensed when reports surfaced about the incident last week Thursday in which the husband who is physically challenged was beaten about the head, face and body by the white family of Donal Kavanagh and Sarah Hattan after the vehicle he was driving struck and killed their dog on the Fort Jeudy main road.
The two non-nationals were charged by police for causing Harm to Smith and are due to appear before a Magistrate’s Court in St. George on July 28.
Attorney Sylvester on Wednesday served Kavanagh and his two sons along with Hattan with a civil lawsuit seeking monetary compensation for Smith over the beating that he received at their hands.
One day later, Hattan went back to South St George Police station, allegedly on instructions from her lawyer, to file a complaint that Smith’s wife had used threatening and obscene language to her during the Fort Jeudy incident.
Police are said to be moving to charge Nicole Smith as a result of Hattan’s complaint.
Speaking on the New York-based RideAlong platform on Wednesday, Attorney Sylvester was able to link the husband of the white family to the police force based on the work done by his private investigators on the Smith matter.
He identified Kavanagh as one who did work for the Grenada Coastguard located in the south of the island.
Sylvester told the host of the programme: “The first defendant (Donal Kavanagh) is not someone who is unknown to the police. He does work for the police at the Coastguard base – so he does work for the police on their boats”.
“He knows the police officers and they know him. So when he called the person in my client’s presence (on the scene of the incident at Fort Jeudy) and said, look I need a police officer to be here – this is the problem that I have – they came expeditiously”.
“What my investigation revealed … he (Kavanagh) is well known to the police at the Coastguard Base. To be on the Coastguard Base (which) is a secured location you must get permission to be there to be able to work on boats and engines”.
“Here you have a man who does work for the police – so he has to know better. It cannot be disputed that he does jobs for the police at the Coastguard Base. It cannot be disputed that he brings his dingy there and he works on his dingy. It cannot be disputed that he normally doesn’t charge the police to do the work on their vessel,” he added.
Ambassador Arley Gill who is working out of the law firm started by Foreign Affairs Minister, Peter David has been retained to look after the interest of the White family living at Egmont.