Accused: I wanted to loot the cash register

Peter McDonald, a 38-year-old father of one, charged with arson in a fire which damaged the Excellent Stores City Centre, yesterday confessed that all he was concerned about was to loot one of the store’s cash registers. He denied setting the fire. McDonald said he was not concerned about his personal safety, only about looting the cash register. Nor was he concerned that the thick smoke could have come from a fire. He said although he did not see any flames he knew that where there is smoke there is fire. A resident of Sixth Street, Malick,  Barataria, McDonald said he was on his way to the corner of Park and Abercromby Streets for a job interview when he decided to pass through the store from its Frederick Street entrance and exited on Chacon Street.

He told Justice Melville Baird and a Port-of-Spain First Court jury, that in spite of seeing smoke coming from inside the store, he entered it. He related that when he reached the centre of the store the smoke got thicker and he did not see anyone in the store. He was passing the cash register, which was close to the Chacon Street exit when he decided to loot the cash register. He bent over the register to try and open it when security guard St Christopher Parris pointed a gun at him and demanded, “What yuh doing here? Don’t you see the store is on fire? Get out!” Mc Donald demonstrated to the Court how he put his hands up and walked out of the store.

He then headed up Chacon Street “a good way,” where he stood looking back at the building.  About eight minutes later he heard a voice say “is he,” and a crowd came running up the street in his direction. In response to questions from his attorney Ulric Skerritt instructed by Dawn Mohan, McDonald recalled a few persons from the crowd ran straight to him and the first to reach him had advanced with hands upraised as though to hit him. McDonald said he raised his hands and blocked his face. He fell to the ground and the same person put his foot on his face, while the others began kicking him and beating him on the ground. He heard a woman’s voice saying, “Don’t kill him. All yuh go kill him.”   

He said Parris, who had earlier chased him out of the store came up, and when he pointed his gun at him on the ground “the crowd eased off.” McDonald said he was handcuffed and taken to the police station. But before Parris took him to the station he planted a knapsack on him with newspapers, a bottle and a knife. Under cross-examination by senior prosecutor Wayne Rajbansie, McDonald said although the smoke was thick and he saw the exit entrance, he took a decision to check the cash register and  deliberately stop by it. He had considered it an opportunity to take  whatever was in it. When hearing resumes today, attorneys from both sides will make their closing addresses to the jury.