Still no jury to try daylight bank heist suspects

Scene of the Cayman National Bank robbery, 2012

(CNS): Efforts to find twelve men and women to try David Tamasa, Rennie Cole, George Mignott and Andre Burton for the armed robbery at Cayman National Bank in 2012 continued Wednesday but failed. Further problems among the eleven jurors that had been sworn on Monday reduced the panel to seven and efforts to find another five were thwarted when the extra jury pool was exhausted after just eleven people were selected.

A combination of restrictions because of the nature of the case, the number of witnesses and defendants, as well as the size of the jurisdiction and the limitations of the wider jury pool all resulted in another difficult day for the selection process.

The courts’ staff has once again been tasked with contacting and recruiting jurors who would be due to serve in the next court session later this year to see if the final juror can be selected Thursday.

The case is scheduled for the next four weeks but the jury selection is eating into the trial time, and with three overseas attorneys taking part, any delays could see the retrial become an even more costly affair for the public purse.

The four men are accused of being part of a gang that included Marlon Dillon, the crown’s key witness in the case, as well as others who were alleged to have been involved but were never tried. According to the crown, the men all had specific roles in the early morning armed hold-up at the Buckingham Square Branch of the local retail bank.

During the course of the robbery more than half a million dollars was taken but the robbers’ getaway was in the first instance foiled by the arrival of a security van, which blocked their escape. The men then fled via other means but the police were led to the home of Dillon, who soon confessed to his part in the crime and also named a number of other people, who were later arrested in connection with the case.