Senior Magistrate Archibald Warner was forced to turn to a common dictionary for a definition of desertion after Bermuda?s legislation failed to lay out the components of the offence against P.c Rickie Marcus Joseph.

Mr. Warner said he had to first define the offence because the Police Act of 1974 lays Police desertion out as a criminal offence but fails to describe the ingredients to the offence or declare if attempted desertion is also an offence. He said he also faced a dearth of case law, because it appears to be an anomaly found only in Bermuda?s law.

He pointed to the paramilitary history of Britain?s colonial police force ? and its successors like the Bermuda Police Service ? as the source of the offence.

The Police Act also allows a senior officer to arrest ? without warrant ? any officer suspected of committing an offence. There was no warrant out for P.c. Joseph. In his ruling, Mr. Warner used a a common usage dictionary to define the verb ?to desert?, saying: ?For this offence I?m satisfied with the definition of ?leaving without intention of returning?. The Crown must make it clear that Defendant has to leave the Police force without intending to return to it.?

At issue was whether Bermuda?s police officers, who serve under contract, could desert as set out in a military context if they neither drafted nor conscripted. But both defence and the Crown agreed that this was not the case. Mr. Warner also had to make a distinction between desertion and being absent without leave, which is a matter for internal police investigation and for which a serving officer cannot be prosecuted in a criminal court.

Director of Public Prosecutions, Vinette Graham Allen said during her summations that desertion was constituted by ?abandoning, leaving or forsaking one?s obligations or duties? to the Bermuda Police service.

But Mrs. Graham Allen agreed later in her summations that an element of permanence was required for desertion.

P.c. Joseph?s lawyer, Delroy Duncan, maintained that his client was guilty of being absent without leave but not desertion, had made a ?no case to answer submission?, which was turned back.