Crown: Not in public interest to proceed
Three men accused of robbing the Cayman National Bank branch in West Bay last year had formal verdicts of not guilty entered for them on Friday and they were discharged.
Two other men pleaded guilty earlier and they are in custody awaiting sentence.
The trial of Bjorn Connery Ebanks, Royce Leon Cornwall and Craig Damion Dilbert was to have started on Friday after a seven-member jury was selected on Monday and Wednesday.
However, when court began, Solicitor General Cheryll Richards advised Justice Seymour Panton that proceedings would be discontinued and she asked that the defendants be discharged.
She said the Crown had considered submissions by attorneys for the defendants that were made to the judge in his private chambers earlier in the week. She said the decision was that, in the public interest, the matter ought not to proceed.
At the request of the defence attorneys, the charges were put to the men in the dock so that they could formally enter their pleas and then have the Crown offer no evidence.
The first charge to which Dilbert, Cornwall and Ebanks answered ‘not guilty’ was possession of unlicensed firearms. The details alleged that, on or about 10 March 2006, they were in joint possession of a nine-millimetre pistol, a .38 revolver and an M16 rifle without licences.
The second charge related to one round of nine-millimetre ammunition.
The third charge was robbery: that on 10 March 2006 at Cayman National Bank at Centennial Towers in West Bay, they stole cash in the sum of US$6,756 and at the time of doing, and in order to do so, used force against the security guard Samuel Dofredo.
After the not guilty pleas were recorded, Justice Panton asked Ms Richards to confirm that the Crown was not proceeding against the three and this was the end of the matter as far as these accused were concerned. She agreed.
In discharging the three defendants, the judge reminded them that serious charges had been laid against them. He said he was not going into the reasons why the Crown was not proceeding, but each of them knew in his own mind whether he had anything to do with the robbery or knew about it.
He offered them his advice – that this was their chance to change if anything that had been said about them in the bundle of case documents was correct. If it was not correct, they could ignore his advice.
There are too many young men in this jurisdiction now who seemed to be getting their names called in nefarious activities, the judge said. There was no good reason for any young man in the Cayman Islands to be contemplating robbery or possession of firearms.
‘So walk good,’ he told them, ‘because if you don’t, you may find that something hits you real hard and there is no turning back from that. Take charge of your lives,’ the judge said.
The two men awaiting sentence are Damion Omar Ming and Eluno George Liking. Ming pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery. Liking pleaded to robbery, possession of an unlicensed firearm and causing grievous bodily harm to the security guard at the bank, Samuel Dofredo.
Mr. Dofredo was shot during the robbery. If the trial had proceeded, the jury would have heard his evidence, although he died last month. Mr. Dofredo was struck and killed by a forklift at the Port Authority Cargo Distribution Centre, where he was working as a security guard (Caymanian Compass, 12, 13 February).
The Evidence Law provides for a witness’ statement to be read to the jury is specific circumstances, including when the person who made the statement is dead. The jury in this case had the names of witnesses read to them and Mr. Dofredo was among those names.
It is expected that details of the robbery will be made public when the sentencing hearing takes place. Defence attorneys and the court’s listing officer were being contacted so that the hearing could be scheduled.
Discussions in a judge’s chambers are not made public unless all parties agree. In this case, not all parties would agree.
Ebanks was represented by Nicholas Rhodes QC, instructed by Nicholas Dixey. Attorneys for Cornwall were Howard Hamilton QC instructed by John Furniss. Mark Rainsford QC and James Austin-Smith appeared for Dilbert.
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