A 50-year-old mason has described in court the moment he believes he was threatened with a gun when enjoying an afternoon beer in George Town three months ago.
“It intimidated me. I was so nervous,” Byran Curtis Smith, from Jamaica, said in Grand Court on Tuesday, 25 July. “No one has ever pulled out a gun at me before.”
Ijaz Enies Dalmage, 26, is facing a several-day-long jury trial after pleading not guilty to possession of an imitation firearm with intent to commit an offence.
He is accused of pulling a fake gun out of the waistband of his shorts and making death threats to Smith outside Reflections Liquor 4 Less on Eastern Avenue on 22 April this year.
During the opening of the trial, prosecutor Orrett Brown presented the outline of the case to the seven-member jury before calling on Smith to answer questions.
The witness, who has lived in Cayman for 30 years, told the court that on his way home on the bus from work that day, he was thirsty so he stopped off at a liquor store to buy a beer.
After he paid the cashier, he stepped out of the shop and saw a sign that said he could not drink within 10 feet of the premises, so he walked to a nearby parking lot to drink.
There were about 10 other people around, he told the jury. He finished his beer and was standing against a wall when a man on a black bicycle appeared from his right.
The man, who he identified as Dalmage, hit Smith twice on his chest with the back of his hand, he told the court, adding, “I was so frightened.”
He went on to say that the defendant then raised his shirt, pulled out a gun from his waistband and, without pointing it at him, said, “Hey boy Blacks, I’ve come for kill you.”
The witness said the other people in the parking lot ran when they saw the weapon, as Dalmage continued to make threats to his life over several minutes.
‘I couldn’t move’
The accused then put his gun back in his waistband and road off on his bicycle towards the liquor store, Smith told the court.
“I was speechless. I couldn’t move,” he said. “I was there for like three minutes, just standing and just looking like I was lost, because someone never point a gun at me before.”
He said he saw police on the road, stopped them and told them about the incident, and they told him to make a report to the closest police station, which he did.
Smith said he knew the defendant from a construction site where they had both worked about a year and three months prior. They had talked a few times.
He told the jury that he believed the threats were in retaliation for an incident at the site, where Dalmage had been accused of violently attacking their only female co-worker.
At the time, Smith had been very angry about the alleged incident and had called the accused “wicked” several times until police officers took Dalmage away for questioning.
Defence: ‘It was a hammer’
Defence attorney Jonathon Hughes, during his cross examination, reminded Smith that when he made his report to the police he had mentioned a rubber handle and not a gun barrel.
“I’m going to suggest that what you saw on 22 April was a hammer,” he told Smith, and said he would be presenting evidence to support that theory.
“I telling the truth what I saw,” Smith told the jury in response. “I saw a gun he had…there were even people there saying, ‘Where did he get a gun from?’”
He added, “I wouldn’t come in court and tell a lie that someone had a gun. I would never do that. I have children, I have kids. I’m a big man, I’m 50 years old.”
Hughes also suggested that Smith’s allegations were to get back at the defendant for an accusation that he “beat him up” at the job site.
The defence attorney concluded, “Either your memory isn’t as good as you think it is and you’re mistaken about what you saw – or you’re telling deliberate lies.”
Detective Constable Owen Santo was the next witness to take the stand Tuesday afternoon.
Along with witnesses, the prosecution will be presenting surveillance footage from Shedden Road as evidence, Brown said.
Justice Cheryll Richards is presiding over the trial which is expected to last from three to five days.
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