A barrister told a jury on Monday that the evidence of a key witness in a conspiracy to murder trial was flawed and that they should put emotion aside and examine the evidence with a critical eye.
Liam Walker, KC, counsel for defendant Antascio Rankine, said that the prosecution’s evidence, which included graphic images, and the summing up disguised gaps in the case against his client for involvement in the gun killing of Sven Connor.
Walker added, “It’s not in dispute he was shot. It’s not in dispute he bled. Why did you have to see it?”
He told the 12-strong jury that it was “emotion imported in so you don’t have to concentrate on the evidence”.
Walker said the case against Rankine was weak as there was “no gun, no gunpowder, no fingerprints”.
He added, “There is none because he is not guilty of this offence, I submit.”
Walker was speaking in the closing stages of the case against Rankine, 30, and co-accused Rolan Welcome, 34, who both face a conspiracy to murder charge and a charge of possession of an unlicensed firearm.
Both deny the charges.
It is alleged they and two others not before the courts were involved in the killing of Connor, carried out as he lay in bed at his home on Fiddlers Way in East End just before 10pm on 7 Dec. 2023.
Shots were fired through Connor’s bedroom window. He was hit by “a hail of bullets” and died in his house as he tried to escape.
The two defendants opted not to give evidence.
Walker said evidence provided by Witness A, whose identity, gender and address were not revealed, could not be relied on.
The witness placed Rankine at Connor’s house at the time the shots were fired.
Walker said that “Witness A’s evidence is key to this case” — but it could not be accepted because it was wrong on major details.
He added Rankine did not have to prove his innocence, so his decision not to give evidence could not count against him.
Walker said, “It’s the prosecution’s duty to prove guilt and he cannot.”
He added, the individual said to be Rankine in CCTV footage “cannot be identified” and that was because “it plainly isn’t him”.
Walker told the jury that three of the four people seen on video — one who is claimed to be Rankine — could not be identified.
He added that Witness A had identified another man at the scene who had an alibi because he was caught on CCTV at a restaurant in George Town at 10:03pm on the night of Connor’s death.
Walker said Welcome was placed at the crime scene “because he said it was him”.
He added Witness A had denied being tired when cross-examined, which was at odds with an earlier police interview where they said they had been tired and had been in bed when the killing happened.
Walker said that evidence provided by Welcome, who denied being involved in a plan to kill Connor, also had to be treated with caution.
He said Welcome was a crack-cocaine addict and was “sweating like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs” during an interview with police seen in court.
Walker added it was possible that Welcome was “agreeing to everything put to him”.
He said the defendant was “coming down” from drugs, and that he had been “under arrest for murder and it’s suggested to him he implicate someone else because it would help him”.
Charles Miskin, KC, who appeared for Welcome, said he wanted to make it “very clear” that his client “did not take part in a conspiracy to kill Sven Connor”.
He told the jury, “It is only if you’re sure that he took part in a plan to kill, intending that plan to be carried out, that he can be convicted.”
He highlighted that his client never mentioned a plan during his “long” police interview and the question was never put to him.
“The interview, in fact, left the matter very loose, perhaps deliberately. He said what he did was the result of fear. He was not a willing participant,” Miskin said.
He said it was true Connor died as the result of the actions of a group of men and that they “may or may not have set out to kill him”.
Miskin added it may have been the original plan was to rob Connor or attack him.
He said that the intention of the group “may have been one thing but changed to another as circumstances dictated”.
He insisted his client was unaware of the presence of weapons and that he “hated firearms”.
Miskin said it was not known who had carried the firearms — a Glock semi-automatic pistol and a revolver.
He explained neither of the defendants had a firearms certificate, but it was not known if the two others had.
Miskin said his client had a drug habit and had also been on the run in connection with “some robbery”.
But he told the court, “None of that makes him a killer or a joint entrepreneur, if I can use that expression, in a plan to kill.
“What it shows is that he was vulnerable in lots of different ways.”
The trial continues.
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