A special constable who was accused of beating a passenger on a minibus was freed yesterday after Resident Magistrate Paula Blake Powell upheld a no-case submission by defence lawyer Peter Champagnie. Denton Davis, 46, was freed after the RM agreed with Mr Champagnie's submissions that that there were too many inconsistencies in the complainant's evidence.

Champagnie submitted that the description which the complainant gave to the policeman who assaulted him did not match the description of the accused policeman.

The complainant had identified Davis in the Corporate Resident Magistrate's Court as the person who assaulted him. Champagnie submitted that when the complainant pointed out the policeman in court that amounted to dock identification and that was unreliable because the complainant did not know the accused before. The allegations were that on November 14, 2005, the police stopped a minibus with passengers along the Half-Way Tree Road. The complainant who was a passenger on the bus said the police were not chasing hardened criminals and were only harassing busmen. The complainant used expletives and he was arrested and charged. The police took the complainant off the bus and began to beat him. The complainant reported the incident to the Police Complaints Authority and a file was prepared and sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions who ruled that Davis should be charged.