A Grand Court trial has begun for two men accused of robbing a cashless bank branch and its customers before making their getaway on bicycles.
The pair were knocked off their bikes a short while later by the husband of one of their alleged victims, who sped after them in his vehicle. They were then quickly apprehended, the court heard Tuesday.
Richard Andre Scott and Mark Alexander Beckett, both of Jamaica, each face one count of robbery, three counts of attempted robbery, and one count of possession of an unlicensed firearm. They deny the charges.
Taking to the stand on Tuesday, 7 Nov., a prosecution witness told the court that she had gone to Scotiabank’s South Sound branch around midday on Friday, 16 June, to make a withdrawal to pay her employees – only to get caught up in the broad daylight robbery.
“I had received $1,500 from the ATM and needed to make another withdrawal due to the maximum limits per transaction,” said the witness, whose name the Cayman Compass is not releasing.
“While making the withdrawal, I heard a commotion behind me, and when I turned, there was a man holding the door open and he was pointing a .38 short-nose revolver directly in my face,” she said.
The witness told the jury that she is a gun owner back in Florida, US, where she is also a citizen, and was able to easily identify the weapon.
“I felt numb, just numb, during the whole experience. Looking back at it now, it was a pretty terrifying and frightening experience,” said the witness.
The court heard that while the gun was pointed in her face, the woman could hear another man talking in “Jamaican patois” demanding cash.
“He kept saying, ‘Give me everything you have, I want all of it,’ but the woman at the teller kept saying to him that this was a cashless bank, and she didn’t have any money because all the cash was in the ATM and they would need a card to access it,” said the witness.
The ordeal is said to have lasted for approximately 10 to 15 minutes. During that time, one robber continued to guard the door while the other turned his attention to the bank’s customers, demanding their cash.
“I could see one woman had thrown out her valuables on the ground, to show him that she didn’t have any cash… then he went to a man who was next to the ATM and kept telling him to withdraw money, but the man continued to tell him the ATM wasn’t working,” the witness said.
The court heard that eventually the robber made his way over to the witness and stole the $1,500, while threatening her in patois, after which both men fled the scene.
“After the robbery, I went outside and told my husband that I had been robbed… I pointed at them and he told our son to get out the car, and then sped away,” said the witness.
Prosecutor Kenneth Ferguson told the jury that the woman’s husband eventually caught up to the robbers and knocked them of their bicycles, resulting in a fairly quick arrest of one of the suspects, while the other fled on foot into nearby mangroves before being apprehended a short time later.
The case is expected to resume on Friday morning, at which time the main witness’s husband is expected to take the stand.
Both defendants were remanded into custody.
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