Angela McPherson, an office assistant at the Bel Air home of businessman Malcolm Panday, on Thursday recalled her ordeal during the $7M July 12, 2011 robbery at the residence, mentioning that accused mastermind Chandradha Rampersaud had called before to find out about the whereabouts of Panday and her daughter, Annie Ramsood.
Rampersaud, Hardat Kumar, Jermaine Mitchell, Aubrey Simon, and Rayon Jones are on trial for the armed robbery of Annie Ramsood, in which over $7 million in local and foreign currency was taken. Ramsood is Panday’s partner.
McPherson, who has worked with Panday for the past eight years, testified before Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court that on the day of the robbery, she received a call from Rampersaud, who inquired about the whereabouts of Panday and Ramsood.
McPherson said she then took the phone to Ramsood.
At about 11:30 am, McPherson heard a scream coming from another employee, who was identified as Shalika Lall, while a man of East Indian descent entered through the front door. She said the man, who held a gun, was hostile and he told them not to move.
“I was cold and scared because of the way he handled Ms Annie, after she keep saying please don’t hurt my children,” McPherson said.
Another man, she added, who was of African descent, entered with Lall.
Special prosecutor Glenn Hanoman asked McPherson to identify the male of African descent and she then picked out Mitchell, who was sitting in the prisoners’ docks.
McPherson said that the men began asking for money and no one replied, which resulted in them threatening to shoot. “I will shoot everybody starting with the children first if we don’t get the money,” she recalled one of them saying.
While Mitchell went with Ramsood upstairs to collect the cash that was in the house, McPherson said the East Indian man asked her and the other servants of the home for two school girls who were staying there at the time—Ramsood’s sister and niece—and for “a short boy cut lady” who she suspected to be Rampersaud.
McPherson said the men subsequently exited the house with two black bags, which contained two brown envelopes.
After the robbery, she identified the men in a line-up at the Brickdam Police Station.
Attorney for Rampersaud and Kumar, Michael Sommersal, asked McPherson how many statements she provided to the police in connection with the robbery. McPherson said there were three. Sommersal then inquired why she had not mentioned to the police that Rampersaud called the Bel Air home on the date in question.
McPherson explained that at that time Rampersaud was not an accused and as a result she did not see the need for that evidence to be mentioned in her first statement to the police.
When Sommersal asked why she had not mentioned it to the police in the other two following statements, she added that the other two statements were in relation to the ID parade.
Also testifying on Thursday was Hector Blackman, the security manager of the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T), who took the stand to produce phone records.
Blackman, who has been employed with the company for 24 years and served in his position for seven years, explained that he is in charge of the security of employees and customers and also attends courts to provide records of calls on behalf of GT&T.
Blackman recalled that in October of this year that he received a summons from the court to provide phone records for the numbers 227-7390, 220-7448 and 231-0157 for the period of July 2011.
“I used my computer access to go into the company system and had the records printed out,” he said, explaining that he was the only person authorised within the company to access the system, for which he has a unique and special password.
He explained that the system captures every landline and cellular call that passes through the GT&T system.
All such data is captured digitally by the system, he added.
He further said that the purpose for the system is for the company to have a record of all calls that are made as well as to have an idea of customer growth, which is captured every day.
Hanoman asked the witness if the system ever malfunctioned at any time during his years of service. Blackman said that it never malfunctioned during his time as security manager.
Hanoman then asked how and where the record was kept before it was brought to Thursday’s court hearing. Blackman noted that on the day the summons was served on him, he went into the system and printed out the phone records, which he kept in his filing cabinet, which was locked in his highly-secured office.
Attorney Omeyana Hamilton, who is also representing Rampersaud and Kumar, brought it to the attention of the court that not all the phone records were signed by Blackman.
Hanoman sought to have the records tendered as evidence but Hamilton objected, on the grounds that he was not the appropriate person to do so. “He does not have the expertise to pronounce on the technical soundness of the system that generated the evidence of the phone records to the said numbers,” Hamilton noted.
The magistrate then reviewed the subpoena.
Hanoman submitted that the subpoena summoned the witness as the person to produce the facts and evidence to the court as the person responsible for providing such information in similar cases. The records were subsequently allowed as evidence.
The trial will continue on November 30.
