Court evidence dominates Jamaica news update on Tivoli Gardens, Aka Drive and Klansman matters

Businessman Neil Anderson, 37, was cleared in the Gun Court on Tuesday of shooting with intent and possession of a prohibited weapon after Justice Leon Pusey accepted a no-case submission from his lawyers. The case arose from a November 11, 2023 incident in Tivoli Gardens, Kingston, where police alleged Anderson and other men fired at them after a chase involving a Toyota Hiace bus.

Three officers told the court they followed the vehicle into the West Kingston community about 5:30 p.m. and that men got out and shot at them. Anderson was later found on the ground with a gunshot wound to the head and taken to Kingston Public Hospital before being charged. The court heard that the bus had different licence plates at the front and rear, but no firearm was recovered, no non-police spent shells were found, and neither the police service vehicle nor the bus had bullet damage. Defence attorneys Peter Champagnie, King’s Counsel, and Sed Bernard argued that the police had no lawful basis to shoot Anderson and that excessive force was used.

In the Home Circuit Court, a government forensic analyst testified in the murder trial of six policemen charged over the January 2013 deaths of Matthew Lee, Mark Allen and Ucliffe Dyer along Aka Drive in St. Andrew. Sergeant Simroy Mott, Corporal Donovan Fullerton and constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose and Richard Lynch are before Justice Sonia Bertram Linton and a seven-member jury. The analyst said DNA from Lee and Allen matched samples taken from the scene, while two items said to be from a blue Mitsubishi Outlander failed to produce full DNA profiles.

The trial continues today with cross-examination.

In another matter, prosecutors in the trial of 25 alleged members of the so-called Teser faction of the Klansman gang recalled a witness as they sought to deal with disputes over a photograph said to show the late Chenisa Latoya Roberts. The Crown wants to use Roberts’ statement in relation to the February 7, 2020 killing of Noah Smith of Yarao Place, St. Andrew. Justice Palmer said the new photograph could be used only for identification at this stage, not to prove the truth of any statement. The matter resumes Thursday.