Driver gets 10 months in jail for hitting St. Lucian scouts

Tracy Fordyce, the driver who hit visiting St Lucian cub scouts and a scout leader on Tuesday along Woolford Avenue, was yesterday sentenced to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to a dangerous driving charge.

A city court heard that on July 26, at Woolford Avenue Georgetown, Fordyce, of Cowan Street, Kingston, drove her vehicle PSS 1236 in a dangerous manner, injuring the three persons.  She was also charged with being in breach of a one-way.

Fordyce pleaded guilty to the two charges, when they were read to her by magistrate Renita Singh.

Fordyce was subsequently sentenced to ten months in prison on the dangerous driving charge and fined $15,000 for the breach of the one-way.

On the day in question, cub scouts Nick Omari Joseph and Darnell Matthew, along with Matthew’s mother, Jacqueline Matthew, who is a scout leader, were struck down near the Scout Association of Guyana headquarters at Woolford Avenue.

Joseph, up to yesterday afternoon, remained a patient at the Georgetown Public Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU). He underwent emergency surgery on Tuesday evening and was still in a critical state.

The Guyana Police Force had said that Fordyce parked her vehicle in front of the North Georgetown Primary School and went into the school for a registration but she was refused entry because of her mode of dress.

“As a result she became annoyed and drove out of the Avenue, in the process the vehicle struck down the two children,” the police release said.

They had travelled to Guyana for the 14th Caribbean Cuboree, which concludes today.