PROMINENT consultant physician, pulmonologist and University of the West Indies lecturer, Dr Charlton Collie was recently freed of assault charges in the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate’s Court.

The case against Dr Collie was dismissed on June 25 after his estranged wife, businesswoman and financial advisor Claudette Crooks-Collie, who is the complainant in the matter, could not produce any evidence to substantiate the charge. Hence, Senior Resident Magistrate Judith Pusey dismissed the matter.

The doctor was brought before the court last November following allegations that he had beaten his wife.

The complainant had stated in court that her husband had hit her so hard that she passed out.

However, Dr Collie’s lawyer, Keidan Francis, had strongly denied the allegations while arguing that her client had never hit his wife and had no history of beating women.

The attorney also told the court that the couple was going through a divorce and that the charge against her client was maliciously fabricated in an effort to remove him from

the home which they shared in Barbican, St Andrew.

In the meantime, attorney Michael Jordon, another of Dr Collie’s lawyers, said that he is currently in dialogue with his client to determine whether or not he should institute a claim of malicious prosecution against Crooks-Collie.

The lawyer maintained that Crooks-Collie used the criminal proceedings to support civil proceedings in the Supreme Court, as the two are going through a divorce.

Dr Collie, apart from his medical professional activities, has represented the Jamaica Labour Party in two general elections.

In 2002 he appeared set to contest the St Mary South East seat against veteran Member of Parliament Harry Douglas, but was replaced belatedly by Tarn Peralto, who lost to Douglas.

Dr Collie switched his attention to the Central Kingston seat, but went down to Victor Cummings in 2002 and present Minister of Education Ronald Thwaites in 2007.

Dr Collie along with former Generation 2000 President Delano Seiveright, were interviewed by the JLP selection committee last Monday, to determine who should represent the party against Minister of Health Dr Fenton Ferguson, the sitting Member of Parliament for St Thomas East, in the next general election due in 2016.

The JLP is likely to announce the preferred candidate soon.

The Kingston College Old Boy studied undergraduate medicine at the University of the West Indies, did residency at Howard University in Washington, DC, USA; and did fellowships at Uniform Services University Health Sciences in Maryland, USA, and Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, USA. He is the founder of the Pulmonary Unit at the UWI and was named Hubert Humphrey Fellow in 2004.