High Court Judge Nali­ni Singh dis­missed kid­nap­ping and rob­bery charges against a taxi dri­ver last Tues­day, af­ter she found the State had erred in a pro­ce­dur­al mat­ter.

In her 27-page judg­ment on Oc­to­ber 14, Singh dis­missed the charges against Don Crichlow for kid­nap­ping and rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion, cit­ing se­ri­ous pro­ce­dur­al flaws in the po­lice’s iden­ti­fi­ca­tion process.

Crichlow was ac­cused of rob­bing an 87-year-old woman, af­ter al­leged­ly pick­ing her up in a white Ti­i­da taxi in Princes Town on Au­gust 10, 2021. The case hinged en­tire­ly on the woman’s iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of Crichlow dur­ing a con­fronta­tion-based pro­ce­dure con­duct­ed a month af­ter the in­ci­dent at the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion on Sep­tem­ber 8.