Court to hear Von Cork’s appeal in Hilary term
FORMER resident magistrate Norma Von Cork’s appeal against her conviction and jail sentence will be heard during the week of January 14 when the Hilary court term begins.
The appeal, which will be heard alongside those of the three men with whom Von Cork is accused of conspiring to pervert the course of justice, is one of two matters set down for hearing that week by Appeal court president, Justice Ian Forte and his colleagues Justices Ransford Langrin and Seymour Panton.
The judges will determine whether or not Von Cork is to serve a 12-month prison sentence for the role the prosecuting attorneys said she played in an attempt to influence the guilty verdict that businessman Christopher Moore received in 1995 for attempting to smuggle 96 tins of ganja disguised as pineapple juice out of the island.
Moore, who was convicted along with his friend, Brian Bernal, the son of Richard Bernal, Jamaica’s then ambassador to Washington, DC, fought the conviction and lost, first in the local appellate court and subsequently in the United Kingdom Privy Council which dismissed the appeal but remitted the case to the local appellate court with instructions that the judges there admit fresh evidence adduced by Moore’s brother, Dwight.
On hearing the evidence, the court dismissed Dwight as an outright liar and reaffirmed the convictions, at which point Bernal went to jail to serve his year while Moore went missing.
Less than a week later, it emerged that a man called Radcliffe Orr had confessed to the crime for which Bernal and Moore had been convicted, in Von Cork’s court.
Her acceptance of the guilty plea and consequential imposition of a nine month prison sentence on Orr triggered an investigation which led to the arrest of herself, Orr, and two other policemen who were accused of being in on the scheme. Moore was also captured. One of the policemen, Clive Ellis, jumped bail just before the trial started.
The other, Morris Thompson, faced the trial which culminated in the convictions of all four.
The basis on which Von Cork’s lawyers are appealing have not been filed yet. However, a source close to the case told the Observer that they would be filed sometime next week.
