Mavado is rejoicing today after his son, Dantay Brooks, was freed by the Jamaica Court of Appeal.
The younger Brooks and his co-accused were released from jail on Friday (March 6), after high court judges ruled in their favor. Dancehall star, Mavado, whose real name is David Constantine Brooks, received the news on Friday that his 22-year-old son and co-accused, Andre Hinds, had their murder conviction overturned by the appeal court.
Sources told Urban Islandz that Mavado was elated when he heard the news on Friday and feels vindicated after years of fighting for his son’s life and not being able to return to Jamaica due to fear of getting indicted for the same murder case.
Dantay Brooks and Andre Hinds were found guilty in 2021 for the murder of Lorenzo Thomas, who police said was killed at his home in Cassava Piece during a home invasion. The prosecution argued during the trial that the two men were among a group of five men who entered Thomas’ home on June 5, 2018, and shot him to death.
Law enforcement also said the men asked Thomas’ father to leave the house before attempting to sever the victim’s head. Police said the five men then poured gasoline over the house and set it on fire. Thomas’ father was the prosecution’s sole eyewitness during the trial, and he testified that he knew his son’s killers from the community.
Appeal court judges Justices Marva McDonald-Bishop, Kissock Laing, and David Fraser overturned the murder conviction on the grounds of error in the treatment of the identification evidence. The prosecution’s sole eyewitness, the victim’s father, was found to have credibility issues, which attorneys say the trial judge ignored.
“We are of the view that the failure of the learned trial judge to adequately warn himself of the dangers inherent in the identification evidence combined with the deficiencies in his treatment of the identification and matters going to the credibility of the prosecution’s sole eyewitness resulted in the applicants being deprived of the safeguards developed by law to prevent the ‘ghastly risk’ of conviction on unreliable evidence of identification,” the appeal court judges wrote in a published statement.
Dantay Brooks, who was 18 years old at the time of his conviction, was sentenced to life in prison, with 22 years to be served before being eligible for parole. Brooks was also given 20 years for illegal possession of a firearm and 15 years for arson, to be run concurrently.
His co-accused, Andre Hinds, was also sentenced to life, with 17 years to be served before being eligible for parole. Hinds was also hit with 15 years for illegal possession of a firearm and arson, to be served concurrently.
Attorney Hugh Wildman represented Dantay Brooks during his appeal trial, while Oswest Senior-Smith represented Andre Hinds.
