Ex-police sergeant acquitted of killing dredge owner
Former police sergeant Shawn Sandy, was on Tuesday acquitted of the 2016 unlawful killing of his employer—dredge owner Feroze Khan—after the judge conducting his trial upheld a no-case submission.
Sandy was arraigned on a charge of manslaughter, for what the police had said was an accidental shooting.
The indictment alleged that on March 24th, 2016 he unlawfully killed Khan at Buoy Hole, Mazaruni.
Following a voir dire, however, Justice Navindra Singh who presided over the trial at the High Court at Suddie, Essequibo, upheld submissions made by defence attorney George Thomas, who successfully argued that his client had no case to answer. In the circumstances, the jury which was empaneled on Monday to hear the case, was directed to return a formal verdict of not guilty, after which Justice Singh informed Sandy that he had been discharged.
It had been the state’s case that Sandy accidentally shot Khan whilst examining a weapon he had found in the backdam.
Investigators had said that on the day in question, Sandy was in the backdam where he found a firearm which he had taken back to the camp.
Lawmen had said that while examining the firearm, a round was discharged which fatally struck Khan. In his submission to the court, Thomas advanced that the only evidence as to what transpired at the material time, came from the caution statement and oral statements— whether direct or circumstantial that suggested how the deceased met his demised.
Those statements Thomas said, did not suggest that the accused aimed or pointed the gun to the deceased.
The attorney argued that in fact, there is no evidence of malice or any assault by the accused to the deceased; while adding that Sandy had always maintained that the incident was an accident.
Against this background, Thomas said that the prosecution needed to establish that the act which lead to Khan’s death was an “unlawful act.”
On this point, he submitted that his client was not charged with possession of the gun or discharging it— but rather manslaughter. The Prosecution, he argued, needed to dispense its burden of proving that the act was unlawful.
The lawyer argued that “the act of examining the gun alone is not sufficient to establish this.”
Referencing a plethora of case law authorities, he advanced that where the only evidence adduced by the prosecution to establish the guilt of the accused comes in the form of the un-contradicted caution statement— which, taken as a whole establishes the defence of accident, with there being no other evidence to contradict the statement of sequence of events presented, then the prosecution would have failed to disprove the defence; and likewise failed to establish that the act of the accused was an unlawful act.
He said, too, that the prosecution also failed to discharge its burden of proving that the accused had the requisite mens rea at the material time.
Thomas submitted that in the circumstances, the prosecution failed to establish a prima facie case of manslaughter against his client, which would have warranted him being called upon to lead a defence.
Thomas said that the un-contradicted caution statement of the accused tendered in evidence by the prosecution contained a substratum of evidence of material primary facts favourable to the accused.
He said that arguably, the caution statement and oral statements attributed to the accused presented the evidence on which the prosecution relied to establish the offence of manslaughter; while again emphasizing that those very statements all suggested that both Khan and the accused had been examining the gun when the dredge owner was accidentally shot.
The defence attorney submitted that it would be fallacious to conclude, as the prosecution sought to do, that because the accused was trained as a policeman; he could not accidentally discharge a loaded firearm.
“Accidents happen to even the most skilled, professional and careful persons,” the lawyer submitted.
Thomas argued that there was no evidence led by the prosecution, whether direct or circumstantial to supports a reasonable inference other than that the accused accidentally applied force to the trigger thereby letting off a fatal shot.
The state’s case was presented by Prosecutor Tiffini Lyken.