A jailed drug smuggler has been criticised for wasting the court’s time and the public purse by pursuing a “farcical”, constantly shifting defence.

Alexta Gill was found guilty last year by a unanimous verdict of importing $676,736 of cannabis and liquid cocaine into Bermuda in an incident on March 4, 2023 and was subsequently sentenced to 18 years behind bars.

In a scathing epilogue in the written sentencing remarks for the case, released this month, Puisne Judge Juan Wolffe said defendants had a fundamental and unshakeable constitutional right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty and should not be faulted for exercising their legal rights.

However, he added: “If ever there could be an abuse of the court processes by an accused person, this probably was it.

“As the second trial process unfolded it became increasingly obvious that the defendant was determined to employ and deploy every possible means of distraction, evasiveness and obfuscation to ‘get off’ of the offences charged.”

Mr Justice Wolffe noted that Gill’s version of events, and the allegations he launched at others, repeatedly changed between his two police interviews, his two trials and his pre-sentencing report.

He said: “Essentially, the more that the defendant spoke, the more he trod down the path of absurdity.

“Even when it was pellucidly clear that he was building a poorly-constructed tower of nonsensical lies, rather than retreat the defendant continuously doubled down.

“Figuratively the defendant was throwing virtually everything at the wall and was hoping that something stuck.”

Gill, a Guyanese national from Canada, was initially tried for drug importation in July 2024, but the trial was aborted after a Covid-19 outbreak among the jurors. A second trial took place last year, ending with the jury delivering a unanimous guilty verdict.

During both trials, the court heard that Gill and a female companion arrived on the island on a March 2, 2023 flight from Toronto, but a suitcase linked to the defendant missed the flight and arrived two days later.

The suitcase was later searched and found to contain six packages of cannabis and a bottle of whisky filled with liquid cocaine.

In his first interview with police, conducted on March 6, 2023, Gill denied knowing anything about the drugs discovered in the suitcase.

However, he backtracked during his second interview conducted the following day, claiming he agreed to bring a suitcase to the island for someone named “Andre” who was threatening his life over an unpaid debt.

Gill claimed during his second trial that the story was a lie told on the instruction of his counsel at the time so that he could be released from custody and accused the officers involved in the interview of intimidation.

However, after he was found guilty, Gill revised his story again and admitted his guilt, claiming he committed the offence because he was struggling financially.

Mr Justice Wolffe subsequently sentenced Gill to 18 years behind bars for importing cocaine and 12 years for the cannabis, with the sentences to run concurrently.

In his written sentencing remarks, Mr Justice Wolffe wrote: “The end result is that copious amounts of time and money was spent for someone who knew that he was guilty of the offences.

“There is no way of knowing the total costs incurred by the police to investigate this case, for the prosecution to prosecute the defendant, for the Legal Aid Office to represent the defendant, or for the court to hear the matter which included pre-trial applications, case management hearings and trials since March 2023.

“I would venture to say however that it must have been a considerable expenditure for the public purse.

“This was time and money which could have been used on the investigation of other criminal offences, for other accused persons who actually have legitimate defences and quite rightly are entitled to call upon the prosecution to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt and for the courts to hear other matters.

“For an already-stretched Criminal Justice System it is regrettable that the defendant saw fit to exploit processes which are put into place and executed to ensure that accused persons have access to justice, are investigated in accordance with proper police procedures and ultimately receive a fair trial in a reasonable period of time.”

While Mr Justice Wolffe said the defence was “farcical”, he remarked that the case was an aberration and that the vast majority of defendants elected not to put forward multiple “sham defences”.

He added: “In all my years of hearing cases in the Magistrates’ Court and in the Supreme Court, I have never seen any accused person conduct themselves like the defendant did.

“I am, therefore, comforted in the sincere belief and knowledge that the accused persons who have already been before the court, are currently before the courts and will in the future be before the courts have not and will not conduct themselves in the way the defendant did.”

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