BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – AFTER being incarcerated for more than five months, two young men on Thursday (Nov. 22) walked out of the Basseterre Magistrate’s Court free of the charges laid against because of the lack of incriminating evidence.
The two men, Kirk ‘Scotty’ Hobson of Stapleton Village and also of McKnight and Kimo Flemming of Trafalgar Village were charged for the June 1, 2012 shooting of Damien Weekes, Dion Hollomon and Vernal Chumney while they were in a shop on Union Street in Haynes Smith Village.
Both men were represented by Natasha Grey of Chesley Hamilton and Associates, who told this publication that at the Preliminary Inquiry (PI) on Thursday, last, State Prosecutor Corporal Francis had “withdrawn the charges against the two accused with liberty to come again and the magistrate told them that they were free to go”.
Grey explained that since charged in June, the matter came up on a number of occasions, twice in October, and the Chief Magistrate, Her Worship Josephine Mallalieu-Webbe had then indicated that if the prosecution could not have presented evidence to prove the two accused were guilty as charged, the matter would progress no further.
The Attorney-at-Law further explained that the “prosecution gave disclosure but nothing was there to implicated the two men”.
She noted that during the PI on Tuesday (Nov. 20), two witnesses appeared in Court on behalf of the State and the first one said he did not see who fired the shots at the three men.
He also told the Court that on hearing the reports of gunfire, he ran and hid himself in a shed in a yard within proximity of the shop.
The Attorney noted that the police statement had placed the second witness at the scene, but he (the witness) told the Court that the shooting had occurred in the night and there was a power outage at the time.
The defence counsel added that the witness said he saw “two masked guys coming through the alley but he did not recognise them”.
Following the evidence given by the two witnesses, the Attorney stated that on Thursday the Prosecutor Francis informed the Court that he needed to liaise with the Director of Public Prosecution because a key witness who should have been present was said to be overseas for some time.
However, according to Grey, “nobody was presented as key witness in the prosecution’s statement in his opening address” and the Chief magistrate ruled that the men should be set free.
At about 9:00 p.m. on Friday, June 1, 2012, two armed, masked men fired a number of shots at persons who were in a shop on Union Street in Haynes Smith Village.
As a result, Weekes, the owner of the shop, Hollomon and Chumney were injured and subsequently warded at the Joseph N France general Hospital.
On the following day, police issued a press release stating that one man was in custody and another was being sought in connection with the shooting incident. The release did not state the name of the person in custody, but this media house had learnt that it was Kimo Flemming.
The then Police Press and Public Relations Officer, Sergeant Stephen Hector, said the police had taken one person in connection with this incident and “we are thankful for the support of the community thus far, but we wish to advise you the general public that we are currently listing one Kirk Hobson of Fort Thomas Road, alias Scotty, as a person of interest”.
Later that day, Sergeant Hector informed the media that at approximately 5:45 p.m. “Hobson, accompanied by an immediate female family member, had turned himself in at the Basseterre Police Station”.
The case of Hobson and Flemming is not the first for the year to be lacking evidence and was dismissed at the PI.
In recent months, the cases that reached SKNVibes for which the police had arrested and charged individuals and were dismissed for lack of evidence, are as follow:
a. Lewis Welsh Jr. of View Point, Sandy Point, who had alleged that he was beaten by two members of the Delta Squad on January 21, 2012 and was subsequently charged with assault and battery on police;
b. Shawn Bradshaw of Parson’s Ground, who was charged with the January 26, 2012 murder of Elvin Elvis Stanley and had spent almost four months in Her Majesty’s Prison;
c. Bernell ‘BJ’ Whyte, Ryan Warner and Audinton Syder, who were arrested on Sunday, May 27, 2012 and jointly charged with assault with intent to rob three persons in Frigate Bay; and
d. Joseph ‘Galvanise’ Hazel of Bird Rock and Keston Martin of Parson’s Ground, who were jointly charged with the January 26, 2012 murder of Elvin Elvis Stanley.
