Shooting victim was due to be gun trial witness

Robert Aaron Crawford

(CNS): A West Bay man who was shot and wounded in the district around midnight on Sunday night-Monday morning should have been the prosecution’s key witness in a gun-related trial due to start Monday, CNS has learned. The victim was the complainant in the case against Aaron Crawford (26), also from West Bay, who is facing charges of attempted murder and possession of an unlicensed firearm. The shooting in Sun Burst Lane, West Bay, happened in the summer of 2015, but a catalog of legal issues surrounding this case and others has seen the trial date postponed on a number of occasions. With the key witness now in the hospital, the trial has been delayed once again.

Crawford, who is currently serving time in HMP Northward for another offence, was expected to appear before a judge sitting alone for the trial without a jury. It is unclear when the trial will now take place, given that the victim is said to be in a serious, albeit stable, condition, having been shot in the body.

The crown’s case against Crawford is that he visited the home of his former girlfriend armed with a .38 Taurus pistol, which was recovered from the scene. While there, he tried to kill her and her new lover, but at some point he also sustained stab wounds to his head and chest and was hospitalised in a critical condition on the night of the shooting more than three years ago.

Crawford has pleaded not guilty to two counts of attempted murder and one illegal gun possession, claiming that he did not bring the firearm to the property but that it was produced by the man at his girlfriend’s house.