FOLLOWING yesterday’s closure of the prosecution’s case in the Ralph Turpin murder matter, Attorney-at-law Mr. Glenn Hanoman, defending in association with Miss Tenicia Daniels, elected to make no-case submissions in the absence of the jury.

After considering submissions in the voir dire that the case for the prosecution was weak, tenuous in law, and did not meet the required threshold, Justice Brassington Reynolds accepted the defence submission and directed the jury to return a formal verdict of not guilty in favour of the accused, former Police Corporal Sherwin Smith, who had been charged with having, on September 15, 2011 at Stabroek, Shot Ralph Turpin, Counsellor attached to Infinity Transitional House at Triumph, East Coast Demerara.

Among other things, the no-case submissions pointed to glaring contradictions in the testimony of star witness Karen Busby-Girard. For instance, she had said that she had seen Smith with a gun shooting Turpin in the forehead about two feet away, but this did not agree with the doctor’s testimony that the absence of soot from the wound had given the impression that the shooting had taken place from a further distance.

Then the star witness had also given evidence that she had seen another woman with a gun, and at one time had heard a gun go off.
And according to the judge, the Street Parade or ID parade had been seriously flawed in the manner in which it had been conducted.

The judge agreed there was nothing linking the accused with the crime.

Mrs. Tashana Lake had conducted the case for the prosecution.

(George Barclay)