Fingerprints at the scene of a burglary were not enough evidence to convict a young man of the crime.
The burglary took place at the All Nations United Pentecostal Church in George Town in July 2005 and $367.25 was reported stolen.
The defendant and his mother both told the court that he had attended services at the church.
The prosecution’s case, presented by Crown Counsel Trevor Ward, was that the point of entry was a window in the male bathroom at the front of the building. The burglar then entered the church office by climbing over an adjoining wall from a female bathroom.
The defendant’s fingerprints were in both bathrooms.
In giving evidence, he said he had used the men’s room and another one, but he referred to it as a unisex bathroom.
Defence Attorney Ben Tonner said the young man had given a credible explanation for his prints being on the tiles of the walls.
But there were also fingerprints on the window sill and the window frame and these did not belong to his client. The print on the frame was not insufficient, meaning that the police did not have a match in their data base.
Presumably that print belonged to the real burglar, Mr. Tonner said.
Magistrate Nova Hall said last week the defendant’s attendance at church services had been sporadic. If his last attendance was, as he said, some months before the burglary, it was unlikely his prints would have remained in the bathrooms.
She said all of the Crown’s evidence had been from witness statements: no one had given evidence in person.
There was no evidence before her as to how long fingerprints last before they fade; there was nothing to say when the bathrooms would have been cleaned.
The statement of the officer who lifted the prints did not indicate which bathrooms the prints were lifted from. Both Mr. Ward and Mr. Tonner had conceded that the references were not clear. The magistrate said she could not make any finding of fact about prints in the female bathroom.
She agreed with Mr. Tonner that the fingerprint recovered from the point of entry was clear, but it was not the defendant’s. She would have expected it to be his; since it was not, that added an extra element of doubt.
She found that the Crown’s case had holes that might have been closed if there had been live evidence. As it was, the Crown had fallen short of its burden of proof. She therefore found the young man not guilty.
Related Videos
