The Court of Appeal will this week begin hearing applications to overrule the 2019 sentence of three police officers who were given 14 years and six months each for the March 2012 killing of 16-year-old schoolgirl Vanessa Kirkland.
Constables Durvin Hayles, Anna Kay Bailey and Andre Wain Smith, who were initially charged with murder, were convicted on the lesser charge of manslaughter on February 9, 2019.
The trio was sentenced in the Home Circuit Court by Justice Carol Lawrence Beswick .
The former student of Immaculate Conception High School was killed on March 20, 2012 when members of a police team opened fire on a car in which she was a passenger. Six other occupants in the car were also shot.
The defence team, which included attorneys Peter Champagnie, who represented Smith, Nadine Guy who represented Hayles and Oswest Senior Smith, who represented Bailey, had appealed to the judge to impose a fine and if she deemed it inappropriate, to abide by the sentencing guideline, which proposes a starting point of five years.
