THE jury in the Charlie Pants murder trial was asked: “What would you do if your mother was drowning?”

Supplying an answer to his rhetorical question, Defence Counsel Mr. Huckumchand, representing the accused, Roger Pilgrim, aka ‘Charlie Pants’, said: “Surely, you will go to her assistance.” He added, “It is the same thing you will do if your mother is being attacked”.

According to the prosecution’s case, on January 22nd 2011, Charlie Pants is alleged to have brutally murdered Shane Rowley following a brawl among neighbours in Sophia.

State Counsel Miss Natasha Backer, in association with lawyer Miss Mercedes Thompson, closed the prosecution’s case on Tuesday, and the defence has since called two witnesses.

In a short address on Thursday, Defence Counsel Mr. Huckumchand told the jury: “The accused acted in self-defence. He went to assist his mother and brother when he, too, became the subject of attack by Shane Rowley, when he was injured and had to hit out in defence of his life; when Rowley was fatally injured.”

That address, though short, was not as short as Barrister Sam Cyrus’s three-word address, “Loose the man”, made some years ago.

The prosecutrix, Miss Natasha Backer, addressing the jury yesterday afternoon, urged them to find that the accused and his relatives had been the aggressors, and requested that they return a verdict in keeping with the evidence led and the oath they had taken.

The judge will sum up on Monday
Written By George Barclay