It was clear that the police had charged the wrong person – Bacchus-Browne

A Layou man was yesterday remanded in custody after being charged for the second time in three years in connection with the murder of a Largo Heights resident.{{more}}

Raphael John, aka “Butterbread” and “Supercat”, appeared at the Serious Offences Court, charged with the murder of Ashley “Seymour” Warren.

John was charged after Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Colin Williams, discontinued criminal proceedings against Colin David, 25.

John, 22, was first charged on February 16, 2009, along with Colin David and David’s brother, Junior.

However, John and Junior David were discharged.

Freed

On Thursday, at the High Court’s Criminal Assizes, Colin David, who was on trial for Warren’s murder, walked away a free man, after the DPP discontinued the matter against the Long Wall resident.

Warren, a fruit vendor, succumbed to a single bullet to his neck, after leaving his fruit stall at Tokyo to carry out a transaction at Long Wall, on January 22, 2009.

On Wednesday, during the trial, prosecution witness Oswald Matthews told the court he saw when the deceased walked up through a dirt track, not too far from Matthew’s house after the deceased alighted from his (the deceased’s) car.

Moments later, Matthews testified, he saw the deceased running from the same track, holding his neck.

He further testified that he saw Supercat running from the shortcut with a red and white bandana over his face. Matthews said Supercat hid behind a pink house, close to where Matthews lived.

“I opened the door and say ‘Alyo done shoot the man. Way yuh running for?’ After I saw Supercat, I saw David coming down the hill (Town Hill) and he said, ‘Hope is not my brother who get shoot dey’…”

Matthews told the court that before the incident, he had seen David and Supercat seated on a stone just opposite where he is living in Long Wall.

Matthews added that following a conversation between David and the deceased, David left where he was sitting on the stone and walked in the direction of Town Hill.

He said he did not see Supercat after David left.

‘… where is the evidence?’

David’s attorney, Kay Bacchus-Browne, said under cross-examination that it was clear that the police had charged the wrong person.

“The person who they call Supercat or Butter Bread, he appears to be the perpetrator. My client was on his way going to Town Hill and the witness said so. I don’t know why the police did not see it,” Bacchus-Browne said.

“My client should have been dismissed from the Preliminary Inquiry stage. When I read the deposition, I kept asking where is the evidence against my client…”

Meanwhile, shortly after emerging with a bag of clothes from her Majesty’s Prison, David, neatly dressed in a white shirt and black trousers, asked his family for a garbage bin to throw away the bag of clothing.

Speaking to SEARCHLIGHT, David said, “I have to give the Almighty thanks and praises, yuh know. Give thanks to me mother and family for standing at me side.

“It was really an experience for me in jail and I have to stay away from bad company.”

David, a father of two, added that he is now going to pick up from where he had left off.

“The most important thing I am free. I was praying all the time and I know I just had to put my trust in the Almighty.”

John’s matter will be heard on April 12, 2013 at the Serious Offences Court.