GEORGE Nooks’s trial for drug possession has been rescheduled to November 23. However, his attorney-at-law Tom Tavares-Finson, QC, is dismissing media reports that the postponement was due to his absence.

“It was postponed because the clerk was ill. I was on standby to come there [the court],” Tavares-Finson told the Jamaica Observer on Sunday. “I’ve seen the reports; I don’t know where they got that from.”

Nooks, a veteran singer, appeared before Parish Judge Maxine Dennis-McPherson in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court in Half-Way-Tree on July 20 when the case was rescheduled to the new date.

Tavares-Finson said Nooks’s overseas gigs will not be affected by the postponement of the case.

According to reports by several media entities, the matter could not proceed because Tavares-Finson was involved in another matter in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston.

Nooks has had several run-ins with the police on drug-related charges.

In May 2017, he was arrested by lawmen when a bag he was allegedly carrying was found to contain just under two ounces of cocaine. He was, however, found not guilty of breaches of the Dangerous Drugs Act due to inconsistencies in the police statements.

He was again arrested for an April 2019 incident and charged with possession of cocaine and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Allegations are that Nooks ingested “some substance” after being accosted by the police in Liguanea, St Andrew. He was taken to Kingston Public Hospital for observation and subsequently released.

In October 2020, he spent a night in police lock-up, and his vehicle, a Mercedes-Benz GL 450 SUV, was seized. It was subsequently returned to him.

Nooks started his career in the 1970s with songs, including Tribal War and Left With A Broken Heart. He, however, had a second wind in the 2000s with God is Standing By, a reggae version of Al Green’s popular I’ll Be Standing By, and Ride Out Your Storm.

— Kediesha Perry