TONY Collymore of Plaisance, East Coast Demerara will, this afternoon, know his fate after Justice Franklyn Holder sums up the evidence in the Longden Street murder trial and hands the case over to the jury for consideration and a verdict.

Defence counsel, Mr. Euclin Gomes and prosecutrix Miss Diana Kaulesar made their final addresses to the jury yesterday morning. The defence asked for an acquittal and the prosecution asked for a verdict in accordance with the evidence and the oath the jury had taken.

Mr. Gomes asked the jury to find that the evidence given by the star prosecution witness, Sherwin Simon, brother of the deceased Jermain Simon, had not been straightforward, thereby creating doubt as to whether he had been speaking of his own knowledge or about what he had been told.

Accordingly, Gomes asked that the jury give his client the benefit of the doubt.

Conversely, the prosecutrix urged the jury not to believe the defence case on the ground that it was intended to mislead them.
The prosecution is alleging that following an August 1, 2012 altercation with the now deceased Jermain Simon over the purchase of trousers, the accused, Troy Collymore stabbed away at Jermaine Simon, killing him in the process.

Delivering his defence with an unsworn statement from the dock yesterday, the accused said that, on the day in question, he was performing the duties of clothes vendor when the now deceased Jermaine Simon turned up and enquired about the price of a pair of pants; and while attending to another customer, he observed that Simon was moving away with the pants without paying for same.

The accused said he challenged Simon and was stabbed in his left chest, and Simon was about to stab him a second time when he was forced to use an ice pick in self defence.

Accused said that, on the same evening, he was admitted in hospital for the injury he had received.

(By George Barclay)