Accused men deny possession in firearm case

Courthouse door, Grand Cayman

(CNS): Two men from West Bay have both denied possessing or even seeing a handgun during an incident in August 2013 that led to firearms charges against them. Jordan Manderson (22) and Austin Jackson (22) both said that they had not seen or touched the pistol recovered by police after Jackson’s alleged former lover was caught on CCTV trying to dispose of it at Countryside Shopping Village, Savannah, following a car crash. Manderson said he barely knew the woman who owned the car that he and Jackson had picked up on the evening in question.   

Drinking from a bottle of Night Train, a fortified wine, that evening, Manderson said he got into the car his friend Jackson was driving when he saw him on the road and they had decided to go to East End. Manderson said he fell asleep after Jackson picked up the woman but he did not know who she was. He denied seeing or touching a gun while in the car and said he did not wake up until he heard the bang when the car crashed.

He said that after he got out of the vehicle, he did not see the woman run with a weapon and had been looking around for a ride when he saw someone he knew. He said he got into that car and then saw the woman whom Jackson had picked up walking around Countryside, and she then got into the car as well.

Manderson told the court that the woman, who was wearing a distinctive orange top, asked him for his black polo shirt and began taking off her own. He said he gave her his shirt, but under cross-examination he could not remember whether he saw her naked breasts or underwear as he had been drinking.

The woman, who is a crown witness in the case, had said Manderson was the one who had instructed her to pick up the gun she had thrown from the car as it crashed following a police chase. However, he denied the allegation and insisted he knew nothing at all about a gun.

When his friend Jackson gave evidence on his own behalf, he also denied ever seeing or touching a firearm. He also denied having a relationship at all with the crown’s witness, contradicting her claims of a short, on-and-off, intense relationship between the two of them. He claimed that he barely knew her and had been introduced to her by another friend. He said there was no intimacy and he had her car that day because she had called him and asked if he could repair a tyre and a timing belt.

He said he was involved in a slight accident before he picked her up after he had repaired the car that night but said he had not stopped because he did not have a driver’s licence, had been drinking and had other traffic charges in the courts. He said that when the police caught up with him in Savannah, he sped away because he didn’t want to go to jail and because the woman had told him to drive off. After he crashed the car into a light-pole, Jackson ran off but was soon caught by police and arrested.

He denied taking the gun from under his seat in the car and passing it to Manderson. He denied putting the gun on his own lap or that of the woman, who he said was not his girlfriend, and he denied threatening her during the drive. He also denied threatening her after he was released and said he called her after his arrest and release because he knew nothing about the gun that the police had questioned him about. He denied telling her to “go home or go hard” and said he had never heard the phrase before.

The judge-alone trial before Justice Michael Mettyear continues Friday.