By Jonelle Fields
The trial of the five men accused of robbing Justice Nicola Pierre and her husband began yesterday with the emotional testimony of the judge, who identified at least three of the men as being responsible during the violent attack at her home and also said that calls to the police went unanswered.
Premnauth Samaroo, Daymeion Millington, Nicholas Narine, Anthony David and Warren McKenzie are jointly charged with robbing Justice Pierre and her husband, Mohamed Chand, as well as shooting at a security guard on July 9, 2015.
It is alleged that the men robbed Justice Pierre of articles including watches, a tablet, video game consoles and games, a phone, a laptop and a quantity of gold and gemstones, all amounting to a total value of $1 million. It is also alleged that they robbed Chand of five watches, a wedding ring, four Oakley sunglasses, two leather wallets, a Samsung S5 cellphone and US$8,000, all amounting $2,630, 000.
When the trial began yesterday at the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court, it was agreed by Special Prosecutor Nigel Hughes and attorney Adrian Thompson, who is representing Samaroo and Narine, that the charges against the men would be heard jointly.
During her testimony, Justice Pierre identified McKenzie, Samaroo and Millington as having taken part in the attack at her Felicity, East Coast Demerara home.
She recounted that she and her family retired to bed around 11pm. She said she went into her son’s bedroom and her husband went into the master bedroom. At around 1am, she said she awoke to sounds of someone moaning. She added that it got louder and then it sounded like a distress call, which was coming from the eastern half of the house.
The judge said she got out of the bed and ran out of the room, grabbing a chair near the corridor leading to the bedrooms as she did so. Half way down the corridor, she was met by a man who approached her with a gun. She said he went towards her, pushed her and yelled at her with expletives to shut up.
When she was pushed by the man, the chair that she had in her hand fell. The man then grabbed her by her neck and dragged her to the master bedroom walk-in closet, where her husband, who was bound and gagged, lay on the floor with two of the accused standing over him. Justice Pierre pointed out McKenzie to the court as the man who pushed her and then dragged her by her neck to where her husband was in the closet. (She also identified Millington as one of the men standing at the closet door.)
She said while they were in the closet McKenzie shoved her to the floor near to her husband, who was bloody and bruised. He had duct tape wrapped around his head, over his mouth and around his hands.
Justice Pierre said a man in short pants, who was holding a gun, stood behind her husband. There was someone else in the closet behind her putting plastic ties on her hands, she added.
McKenzie, she recounted, asked her, “Where the money deh?” He then hit her across her face with the gun in his hand, she added. She said she then told them where they could find the valuables. She directed the men to her jewellery tray, the keys to her safe and everything else that was valuable that she could have thought of at the time.
She said the men started to empty the tray with her jewellery into her son’s haversack.
McKenzie, she noted, hit her husband when he tried to defend her when one of the men slapped her. The judge said the men demanded more money, while noting that a man had told them that money was there.
Justice Pierre became emotional as she recounted one of the men telling the rest to separate her and her husband to break them into talking and telling them where the money was.
She added that one of the men, Narine, told her that she was “solid” as they took her away from her husband to another room. After the men left her for some time, the judge recalled going to her son’s bedroom to check on him. He too was bound at his hands and feet. She said she covered him with a blanket and hid him under his bed in his bedroom and then locked the door. She said afterward she went back into the room in case the men returned to her.
Justice Pierre said that that she heard the men ransacking the middle floor of her three-storey house. Shortly after, gunshots were heard outside in the yard. At that time, the family was finally together in one of the bedrooms. They had assumed that the men had left the house. The judge said she called the police twice and no one answered. She then called a friend and told him what had transpired.
The judge recollected going to the bathroom to find a pair of scissors to cut her and her family loose. She said they stayed upstairs for ten minutes and then went down to the middle floor, which was ransacked. They then went down to the ground floor, which was left opened.
Her husband, she added, went to check on the guard who was also tied up in the guard hut and he freed her from the chair she was strapped to. Justice Pierre then said that after that a police officer came and she spoken to him, while her husband and son went to the hospital. She too was also admitted to the private hospital.
Secured
The judge repeatedly told the court that when she went to bed her house was secured. “My doors were shut, my windows were shut, my gate was locked and the guard was outside” she recounted.
She noted that the house is located in a gated compound, which is surrounded by an eight-ft. high concrete fence, a metal gate that is electronically-controlled. She added that the only persons with keys to the gate were the other residents and her assigned security detail.
The judge said her house was also well secured by a six ft. high chain link fence and two metal gates.
Also testifying yesterday was Constable Marks, who was the judge’s security guard.
At approximately at 1.30am on the morning of the attack, Marks said, seven men came and surrounded her guard hut. She stated that the men had weapons that looked like pistols. She said the men beckoned her to not make a sound.
Constable Marks said she was able to see the men and where they were because of the lights that were in the yard. The guard said after the men realised that she was about to scream they told her to shut up and three of them went into the hut, checked her for weapons and then tied her to the chair in the hut.
The Constable related to the court that the men asked her which house the judge lived in and she replied that she did not know and that she did not know the people. She said the men left her, closing the door as they did so and blocking her from seeing in which direction they went.
After they left her, the constable added that she heard sounds like if they were jumping into a house and then five minutes after she heard a female shouting for around twenty minutes and the sound of things being thrown out of a house. She said that four of the men returned to her in the hut followed by another three who were throwing things over the fence. One of the men, she recounted, shouted to another to call a taxi. She then saw them walk out. The constable told the court that she saw all of this through a window in the guard hut.
Constable Marks said she never gave permission for anyone to tie her up.
The trial was adjourned to today by Magistrate Zamilla Ally-Seepaul.
