When a system is bogged down with pennies and is costing pounds isn’t it time to throw the pennies away?

I am talking about the 1,300 warrants that are outstanding for persons who have received traffic tickets, are witnesses in criminal cases and have not shown up.

Some, around 10% go back almost ten years!

The large majority are for trivial matters and this is where anything outstanding for longer than five years should be written off. It is ridiculous and a shocking waste of manpower especially when it is the police that have to deal with it.

And the police don’t start at the beginning of the pile. They start with the newest warrants at the top and therefore will never get to the bottom. So it makes little sense to keep them in the system.

And have any of you actually been called as a witness or gone to the court to challenge a ridiculous traffic offence like going through an amber signal light or an obstruction violation?

Both of these are up to the police officer to base the offence on his opinion that I can honestly say can be flawed.

I have been called as a witness and along with my wife tried to challenge a supposed traffic violation. Both of us have sat outside the courtroom for hours and I do mean hours and given up when it has reached three. My wife paid the ticket even though the officer dishing out was clearly wrong. She is elderly and couldn’t wait any more.

I was a witness to a petty incident where the offender pretended he was working in my garden. Twice I went to the court and waited and waited. Both times after speaking to a criminal defence lawyer who happened to pass me and asked me why I was there, to be told by him that it was his client being prosecuted and he wasn’t on the island! The prosecution never told me.

If it happened to me twice and my wife once, incidentally the only times we have been called, there is a pretty good chance it has happened to someone else.

I suspect that some of the 12 – 15 warrants per day being issued have occurred because of the ridiculous wait and the lack of any reporting system in place at the Court that the person has actually been there.

It is all very well the police saying people play fast and loose with the law because of the lack of consequences for not attending but there are two sides to every coin. Then there are the persons who have not appeared because they have left the Cayman Islands.

Something has to be done and I agree with Chief Superintendent Kurt Walton who said there was a huge strain on the police resources for going after these outstanding warrants. He said there was need to be a review.

One of them must be a time limit. And if there is new legislation wipe the slate at least one side of it clean. Even a cleaner has to work set hours. What doesn’t get done within those hours is left. It doesn’t get done. It is out of time.