Inquest witness on the verge of tears

Joel Charles, 20, died on April 5, 2007 at the corner of Mon Repos and Morvant Road, after he was allegedly struck by a bullet from a police gun.

According to reports, Charles was eating doubles at the time of his death.

Judy Victor, a self employed resident of Morvant, stood in the box before Coroner Sherman Mc Nicolls in the Port-of-Spain Eighth Magistrates’ Court yesterday afternoon. While under cross examination by Khan, Victor claimed she picked up two spent shells the day after Charles was killed. However she could not remember anything else.

A nervous Victor told the Coroner that her husband had objected to her giving testimony at the inquest and she really had nothing to say. Khan was infuriated and tore into Victor telling her that she was not telling the truth.

“You expect this court to believe that this happened in your area, that you pick up vital evidence and gave it to a man and you cannot remember the day, the month, or the year. You pick up vital evidence. That is evidence which must be matched and you cannot remember anything after that,” Khan said loudly.

A clearly frightened Victor said, “I just pick them up, I did not think anything.”

However Senior Counsel Khan was not buying into it and did not let up.

“Why you give him the shells if you did not think it was important. Is everyday somebody in this country getting killed. Either police getting killed or citizens getting killed and people like you not talking. If you had a son you would want somebody to talk, wouldn’t you? The good people packing up and leaving, like those whose homes were fire bombed yesterday, and people like you keeping quiet,” Khan shouted.

Victor could not offer much and so was relieved after claiming over and over that she was at home when Charles died.

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"Inquest witness on the verge of tears"

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