One charged in robbery and cop shoot-out

Odain Ebanks

(CNS): Odain Ebanks (24) has been charged with a list of serious offences in relation to a robbery in Bodden Town earlier this month that was followed by a shoot-out with the police in the Prospect area of George Town. The local man, who has been remanded in custody, denies being one of two robbers who held up the  Czech Inn Restaurant on Bodden Town Road at around 11pm, fleeing in a stolen car and then engaging in a shoot-out with officers who were on the trail of the suspects. 

Crown prosecutors told the court that it had forensic evidence to link Ebanks to the crime but that the weapon and second suspect were still at large, as they requested Ebanks be held in custody pending his next appearance in the Grand Court on 23 March. During the robbery, the owner of the bar was pepper-sprayed by one of the two masked men who committed the stick-up before they both fled with cash from the till.

Although Ebanks was not asked to answer the charges he now faces, his defence attorney indicated that her client denies being involved in the robbery in any way. He faces charges of possession of a prohibited weapon, possession of an unlicensed firearm, unlawful discharge of a firearm, and robbery.

During the proceedings the court also heard that the pepper spray used in the robbery and recovered by police officers following the shoot-out with the suspects was stolen from a customs officer’s car some weeks before.