Dillon ‘dangerous’ say defence lawyers

(CNS): Attorneys representing the men charged with the 2012 daylight robbery of Cayman National Bank all warned the jury that the crown’s witness, Marlon Dillon, was dangerous and they could not convict their clients based on his ever-changing evidence. As each lawyer tore into Dillon’s testimony, upon which the crown has based its case, they urged the twelve men and women trying the case to acquit their clients.

Lawyers speaking for Rennie Cole, George Mignot and Andre Burton all raised concerns that the proven lies, inconsistencies, contradictions and inexplicable accounts given by Dillon pointed to a concocted story created for his own benefit.

Laurence Aiolfi, of Samson and McGrath, who represents Cole, one of the defendants with no previous convictions, said his client was a customer at the bank that day and pointed to the CCTV footage which he said shows Cole was taken aback by the robbery. Far from distracting the guard, Cole flinches when the robbers burst in and one points a shotgun in his face.

Aiolfi said his client was charged with this crime because of an unfortunate coincidence that he was acquainted with Ryan Edwards, one of the armed men in the gang, and because Dillon came up with his name some three weeks later, following a procedurally flawed identification process and after the crown witness was taken to court with Cole on the same day. Aiolfi denied his client had gone on a shopping spree following the bank robbery and said the purchase of a few low-cost items was not evidence of his client’s role in a bank robbery.

Guy Dilliway-Parry, from Preistleys, said the crown had simply got the wrong man in the case of his client, George Mignot, who is accused on Dillon’s account of being the man on CCTV with a shotgun. The lawyer said there was evidence that even pointed to the identity of another man. A hoody top found in the luggage of Ryan Edwards, which on the CCTV footage looked identical to the one worn by his co-conspirator, had the DNA of another man on it — one who was never charged but whom Dillon had called on the day of the robbery. But there was no connection at all to Mignot, Dilliway-Parry said.

He said that the crown was depending on the fact that Mignot, who had the worst work attendance record of anyone in the Cayman Islands and had been reprimanded for his absenteeism by his boss, was not at work that day, and using that to link him to an armed robber and the fact that he was an associate of some of the others in the alleged gang. The lawyer also noted that Mignot had only minor offences on his police record and said his client was an ordinary man who still lived with his mother and was barely able to get himself to work on a morning, never mind to an armed robbery.

Dillaway-Parry said that, with the evidence against his client coming from Dillon, a self-serving manipulative man, the jury had to overcome the danger of “convicting an innocent man”, but with his absence from work and the fact that he knew Dillon, the only verdict the jury could live with in the long run was not guilty.

The last of the attorneys to speak as the trial drew to a close Friday, was Paul Keheler QC, a UK-based attorney instructed locally by Margeta Facey-Clarke, who is representing Andre Burton, the man accused of being the getaway driver. Although he also has admitted knowing Dillon and some of the others, he has denied playing any part in the daylight heist. Missing from work for around an hour about the time of the armed hold-up, he says this was explained by the fact he went to get weed in West Bay.

The lawyer said the crown’s key witness had fooled juries before because in the previous trials the full extent of Dillon’s lies had not been revealed. Having committed perjury in the last CNS trial, Keleher said Dillon had done it again in this case.

He told the jury that they were there to “write the final chapter” in the story of Dillon’s attempts to throw everyone to the wall to try and get himself out of trouble. He described the prosecution’s main witness as a “devious, duplicitous two-faced person”, and that there were other people still out there who had committed this robbery.

The largest bank robbery not just in the Cayman Islands but across the region, around half a million dollars was stolen in the heist, which took place on 28 June 2012 at the Buckingham Square branch of Cayman National. Marlon Dillon was arrested on the same day after the getaway had been foiled by an armed van that blocked the robbers’ getaway car. The robbers had fled on foot to Dillon’s own vehicle and used that as the escape car.

As a result, that evening police turned up at Dillon’s home and found him hiding under a shed with a large chunk of the stolen cash. Despite concocting a number of different stories since his arrest to minimize his own involvement and point the finger of blame at others, Dillon has been heralded as a star witness by the crown in this and the previous CNB trial, the Weststar robbery and an unrelated murder trial.

Having admitted to being one of the men in the CNB robbery and the getaway driver in the Weststar heist, Dillon was given a reduced sentence for his part in the crime. Supposedly a protected witness, Dillon, who is now a free man, is continuing to battle with the Cayman authorities over his immigration status and his goal to be relocated to the UK to join his family. According to all of the defence lawyers in the case, having achieved his lighter sentence, the recent question of Dillon’s pending deportation and his goal to get to the UK are the reasons why he continues to lie and falsely accuse the wrong men.

The trial, which is now in its sixth week, will continue in Court One Monday with the presiding judge, Justice Ingrid Mangatal, summing up the case for the jury and directing them in law.