Woman admits web of lies in gun case

Courthouse door, Grand Cayman

(CNS): A local woman who says she found herself in possession of her former lover’s pistol, through no fault of her own, said that she had originally told a web of lies in an effort to avoid getting in trouble and because she was afraid of telling the police the truth. The woman, who is now appearing as a key witness in the prosecution’s case against two West Bay men for possession of an unlicensed firearm, told the court that her boyfriend at the time, Austin Jackson, had the gun in her car when he collected her from work in August 2013, accompanied by Jordan Manderson.

But when the car crashed during a police chase, she tried to get rid of the weapon as she did not want to be associated with it.

The two men have both denied charges of possessing the semi-automatic pistol which was recovered by police after the car in which the men and the crown’s witness were travelling crashed into a light pole near Countryside Village during a police chase.

Giving evidence Tuesday, she said that when Jackson collected her that evening, she could see the car had been in an accident of some kind as the fender was marked. Her lover denied being in a collision but told her that the police were after him. She said that Jackson, driving dangerously from Governor’s Square eastward, had pulled the gun from under the seat and passed it back to Manderson as they sped through town. As the journey progressed, Manderson handed the weapon back to Jackson, who had it on his lap but at one point he placed the weapon on her knee. The witness said she quickly handed it back to him but was very concerned about the gun being in her car.

Jackson slowed down as a result of her protestations about his driving but as they arrived in the Savannah area, the police caught up with the car which had been involved in a crash earlier and began a pursuit. The witness said that during the chase she was thinking about the gun and when Jackson crashed the car into a light pole, the weapon slid off his lap, so she took it and threw it out of the car window.

The witness told the court that the car carried on for a while but then Jackson pulled over, got out and ran off, with the police on his heels. The woman said she remained in the crashed car and turned off the engine. As Manderson also got out of the car he told her to hide the gun in the back of her jeans and when she told him she had already thrown it out he told her to go get it.

The woman told the court that she then ran and picked up the weapon and continued running with it hidden under her shirt into Countryside Shopping Village, where she threw it in a waste bin. But a security guard then appeared and reached into the garbage and pulled out the gun.

“I put my hand on it and asked for it back but he didn’t want to let go of it,” she said. “I then said, sir, I don’t want to go to jail. I have children.” She struggled with the guard to retrieve the weapon before she ran behind Fosters and then threw the weapon into the bushes.

She told the court that Manderson then turned up in another vehicle with a couple she did not know but who took her home, which was nearby. Having realized that she had left her bag, keys and other possessions in her car at the scene, her landlord helped her into her house.

That was when she began telling her first lies, as she claimed that she had not been in her car at the time of the crash. As the chain of events ran their course, the woman continued lying about her presence in the car to the police until she pleaded guilty to possession and found herself in Fairbanks.

She said that it was then that she began to tell the truth and admitted that she had the weapon in her possession because she had taken it from her boyfriend, Austin Jackson.

She told the court how she found herself in a dilemma because she was both afraid of the legal consequences but also of the men she would have to tell on. She said that shortly after her arrest Jackson had told her that because she had taken the gun and tried to hide it she had to “go all the way” and accept responsibility for the weapon. She said he told her, “Go hard or go home.”

When it became clear that he was not going to tell the truth, she felt betrayed by him but also threatened and she was afraid of what would happen if she told the police. A mother of two children, she told the court that she had tried desperately to distance herself from the gun but she did not know how to approach the situation. She began lying and continued to do so until last year, she said, but she told the court that she was now telling the truth.

Under cross-examination, she said that her decision to come clean after she had already pleaded guilty anyway was no guarantee that she would receive a lighter sentence and no promises had been made to her that she would serve less than the eight years a judge had indicated she would serve when she admitted possession.

“When you tell the truth, things work out how they are supposed to be,” she said. “I might not want to be in this situation but I have to tell the truth now … the lie wasn’t going to help me.”

She said if she had to go to jail, in the end she wanted to go based on the truth and not a lie. But if by giving evidence her sentence was reduced, then “fair’s fair” she said, as the gun was not hers and she had never wanted to be involved or have anything to do with it.

The witness said she should have told the police about the gun from the start and who it belonged to but she was confused and afraid.

“The firearm should not have been in my car,” she told the court. “I should not be facing this.”

Justifying what she had done, she said that “having a firearm is frightening when it’s not yours and you don’t want anything to do with it”.

Manderson and Jackson have both denied the charges. The case continues before Justice Michael Mettyear sitting alone in Grand Court One.