Suspect appears in dock 6 years after armed robbery
Dan Kelly
(CNS): Dan Davar Kelly (25) appeared in the dock Thursday accused of robbery, almost six years after the hold-up had taken place at a bakery store in West Bay. Kelly was just a teenager when he was arrested and charged in connection with the daylight armed robbery at the Caribbean Bakery on Mount Pleasant Road in September 2010, which the crown said he committed using an adapted flare gun along with a second man, who has since been convicted and already served his sentence. Kelly, however, absconded from the jurisdiction while on bail and was only rearrested in May 2015 when he returned to Cayman.
Originally from West Bay, Kelly jumped bail some time in 2011 and was reportedly living in Birmingham in the British Midlands for several years. He was eventually apprehended at the airport after an off-duty officer who was aboard the same British Airways flight recognized Kelly, who by that time was also wanted in connection with other crimes.
As crown prosecutor Kenneth Ferguson opened the robbery case in front of Justice Charles Quin, who is hearing the matter without a jury, he told the court that Kelly and his co-defendant had run into the shop wearing masks over their faces and carrying a modified flare gun at around 11am on 29 September 2010. They demanded cash from the female sales clerk, who was in the store alone, and after she opened the cash register the men grabbed the money and fled on foot with around $400.
As he set out the crown’s case, Ferguson said the robbery lasted for around 30 seconds but the store clerk was able to give a detailed description of the clothes the men were wearing and the store had CCTV which recorded the daylight stick-up. Soon after the robbery, a man living behind the bakery also called the police reporting that he had seen two men running in a crouched position through the fields, jumping over fences and acting suspiciously in the area behind the bakery.
When the police arrived at the scene they pulled Kelly and another man out of the bushes. At the time, despite being a rainy day, the men were wearing shorts and no shirts or shoes. They were arrested, and when cautioned by the police, Kelly said he and the other man had been in the bushes because they were smoking weed.
But officers searched the area and soon came across a garbage bag containing clothes, shoes and masks that matched the exact description of those worn by the robbers, including a pair of purple surgical gloves. Then a short distance away a modified flare gun was also found by police wrapped in a shirt.
DNA evidence was later discovered on some of the clothes found in the garbage bag which matched Kelly’s. Although the flare-gun was loaded and had been adapted to hold shotgun cartridges, the court heard that a firearms expert had concluded that the weapon would have likely exploded had the robbers tried to use it. The expert said that the plastic barrel would not have withstood the pressure.
The case continues.
