No prison time for taxi man in 2023 car crash that claimed five lives

Delroy Rodney, the Westmoreland taxi operator who previously pleaded guilty to five counts of death by dangerous driving following a motor vehicle accident in November 2023, has been sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment suspended for three years.

Rodney received the judgement this afternoon during his sentencing hearing in the Westmoreland Circuit Court, which was presided over by High Court Justice Courtney Daye.

Rodney was sentenced to 18 months on each of the five counts, with all the sentences to run concurrently.

Additionally, he has been ordered to pay $500,000 on each count, to the surviving families of the five victims.

He is also not allowed to hold or obtain a driver's license for the next three years.

During sentencing, Justice Daye noted that while the maximum sentence for causing death by dangerous driving is five years imprisonment, Rodney was given a reduced sentence due to his early plea of guilty, his expression of remorse, and his previous clean criminal record.

Rodney was arrested on November 15, 2023, two days after the Toyota Noah motor vehicle in which he was transporting passengers collided with a Shacman truck along the Bluefields main road in Westmoreland.

The five persons who perished in the crash are 15-year-old schoolgirl Lavecia Forrester and her 39-year-old mother, Petrina Wallace, of Gordon district, in Whitehouse; Oneil Allen and his mother, 65-year-old Angela Samuel, of Mount Edgecombe; and 54-year-old Janet Thompson, of a McAlpine address.

Rodney was represented by attorneys Lambert Johnson and Faith Salmon during his sentencing hearing.

- Christopher Thomas

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