A policeman who was accused of shooting an Alpha Academy student in the head while she was travelling in a taxi in 2016, was spared prison time after an almost hour-long impassioned plea from his attorney Peter Champagnie, QC on Thursday.

The accused, 42-yeas-old Corporal Kirk Haye, had been found guilty of unlawful wounding earlier this year in the Corporate Area Parish court. Haye was sentenced to two years in prison but suspended for two years pending good behaviour for that period.

READ: Former Mobile Reserve cop found guilty in 2016 shooting; four others freed of all charges

The prosecution’s case was that on June 30, 2016, in the downtown Kingston area, Haye used his M16 rifle and opened fire on a taxi in which a student of Alpha Academy, Zoe McKoy, was travelling.

McKoy was shot in the head.

After being hospitalised for several weeks, McKoy recovered. Haye, at the time, was a member of the now-disbanded Mobile Reserve Unit.

At the trial, which took place at the Corporate Area Parish Court, Haye had denied being a part of any police shooting. However, ballistic evidence presented by the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) prosecutors suggested that it was his weapon that was used in the shooting when a spent casing was recovered on the scene.

A comparative test was done with this spent casing and Haye’s weapon.

Champagnie, in his plea for leniency, asked the presiding judge to take into account a number of positive factors such as Haye’s sterling contribution of 18 years to the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). It was pointed out that Haye had in the past been responsible for the recovery of a number of illegal firearms and had received 10 commendations.

In 2016, the police reported that a robot taxi operator was transporting students of the Convent of Mercy Academy and St George’s College when the vehicle was stopped by the police at the intersection of Mark Lane and North Street.

The taxi initially stopped but then drove off and was fired at by the police.

One of the bullets hit the female student, who was 13 years old at the time. Another Alpha Academy female student and two other St George’s High School boys who were in the vehicle were not harmed.

The police had to call the fire brigade to respond to four incidents of fires lit by enraged protestors in the area in the wake of the incident.