Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
TWO SECURITY guards, who were arrested and charged in November 2003 after a bank employee was shot and killed inside the lobby at his workplace, have been freed of the murder charge.
A Home Circuit Court jury, after retiring for 50 minutes, freed Orville Stephenson and Royston Stewart, who were employed to Securicor Jamaica Ltd. at the time of the incident.
They were charged with the murder of Marcel Small, 31, supervisor employed to the Information Technology Division of the National Commercial Bank (NCB) on Eureka Road, Kingston 5.
The Crown led evidence that at about 12:20 a.m., a driver employed to NCB was sitting in his motor vehicle reading a newspaper when he saw Small drive on to the compound. Small alighted from his motor car and began to smoke a cigarette. Shortly after, a car drove up, men alighted from the vehicle and went towards Small. The men pointed guns at Small and began to rob him.
One of the gunmen approached the driver, ordered him out of the motor vehicle and robbed him of money and his cellular phone. They forced the driver and Small to lie on the ground.
The driver, who was the main witness for the Crown, said that after the men left, he ran into the building where the security guards were and told them of the robbery. The two security guards pulled their firearms and began to fire shots hitting Small, who had run into the building behind him. After the shooting ended, Stephenson said "... the wrong man got shot."
Cross-examined by attorneys-at-law Eme Usim and Debra Martin, who represented the security guards, the witness said on the night in question, Small was wearing a cap with a peak. He was not accustomed to wearing a cap and could easily be mistaken for one of the gunmen.
GUNSHOT WOUNDS
Dr. Ere Seshaiah, Government forensic pathologist, testified before Mr. Justice Basil Reid and the jury that he performed a post-mortem on the body and found gunshot wounds to the front and back of the body. He said there was a total of seven gunshot wounds.
It was borne out at the trial that the security guards fired a total of five shots from their guns and the Crown could not account for the other two shots.
The two security guards relied on the defence of accident and self-defence. They said the shooting took place inside and outside the lobby. Stewart was shot and injured during he incident and had to be hospitalised. The men said on the night in question, the car park was not properly lit and inside the lobby was dark.
