Unreliable eyewitness testimony resulted in the lawman accused of the 2011 murder of drug counsellor Ralph Turpin walking free on Tuesday at the end of his High Court trial.
Justice Brassington Reynolds upheld no-case submissions by Defence Counsel Glen Hanoman, who, in association with Tanicia Daniels, represented the accused Police Corporal Sherwin Smith.
Hanoman argued that the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused shot Turpin, through the testimony of eyewitness Karen Busby-Girard.
Busby-Girard, in one of her statements to the police stated that Smith was the shooter.
However, under cross-examination, she admitted that she had seen “an Indian woman” leaning over Turpin, holding a silverish object which she identified as a gun, before hearing two gun shots fired.
Moreover, she said woman was heard cursing Turpin saying, “You know who the (expletive) we are?”
When asked why she had not mentioned the woman with the gun before, she said she had feared for her safety. “Is not that I am afraid to implicate her. I have been living like a fugitive since the incident happened. I have had to change numbers,” Busby-Girard told the court.
The September 2011 killing occurred at a Stabroek Market food stand when Turpin went to the assistance of a woman who was being physically assaulted by a man.
Smith was committed to stand trial in the High Court in 2013 by Magistrate Sueanna Lovell, who ruled in the Preliminary Inquiry that a prima facie case had been made out against him.
He had pleaded his innocence in the smaller court, saying: “I am innocent of the offence and would like to let the court know that the case against me is a cook-up to hide the true facts of the matter. As a result I will reserve my defence for the High Court.”
