The prosecution told a jury that the evidence shows that after an argument with Victor Watson, murder accused Ramon Doyle left the scene, returned and stabbed the deceased.
But the defence contends that it was “madness up there that day” and no one had identified who delivered the fatal stabs to Watson.
Doyle, of Leinster Road, Waterford, St Michael, is charged with murdering Victor Watson, formerly of Lower Deacons Road, on December 3, 2021.
In closing arguments in the case in the No. 4 Supreme Court, acting Director of Public Prosecutions Alliston Seale SC, who presented the State’s case with Principal State Counsel Rudolph Burnett and State Counsel Paul Prescod, urged the 12-member panel to reject the unsworn statement of Ramon Doyle, who testified that he had been attacked by several men including Watson after the deceased had approached and told him to leave the area.
Commenting on the testimonies of several witnesses who admitted that they had severely beaten Doyle at the scene, the top prosecutor stated that the evidence showed their attack was after they had seen the accused stab their friend.
Pointing to Doyle’s police interview, Seale highlighted the “no comment” answers given by the accused to several questions, including those on whether he had been armed with a knife and whether he had attacked Watson.
The DPP said: “This is the time to say: ‘Officer, no. The knife that I used, Victor had. I tek it from he.’ That’s when to say it, when the facts are fresh. Not when you had time to make up a story and want to come in here and try to fool big people.”
Seale sought to dismiss the possible defences in the case, asking whether an unprovoked attack on an unarmed man could be considered self-defence or an accident.
“Once you accept that it happened as the evidence unfolded – that the stabbing of Victor was long after the same incident and (Doyle) walked away and returned – then the only verdict should be one guilty of murder.”
In her arguments, Senior Counsel Angella Mitchell-Gittens, who represents Doyle, told the jury to question the appearance of the knife.
She said: “There is no evidence that the accused lives anywhere out there. Nobody knows him out there, clearly he is a stranger. He has no right to be out there. Whose home did he go to to get a knife? More importantly, Victor is the boss. Everybody watching because Victor says he is not supposed to be out there and there is a noise and Dario providing security. Ramon Doyle could pull out that long silver knife and nobody ain’t see before Victor start to get stab? Nobody make an alarm ‘Victor look out’? It is not a pocket knife. Where did it appear from all of a sudden?”
The only explanation, she told the jury, was that the deceased had been armed with the weapon.
The defence attorney also said that in all of the evidence given by the various witnesses, no one said that they saw Doyle stab Watson in his back.
“That’s where the fatal stab wounds were, in his back. Nobody told us about that. When he get these stabs? How he got them? Who stabbed him? What we know was that there was mayhem out there that day. They would have you believe that Ramon Doyle must be Hulk. He was so out of control that when a solid piece of metal hit him in his face and when somebody throw a stone in his face, he was still coming. Does that make sense to you?”
Mitchell-Gittens added that one of the witnesses recounted that he had been injured to his back but had not known about it until he was taken to hospital.
“What madness was happening out there that day? In all of this, you have to be sure beyond a reasonable doubt of Ramon Doyle’s guilt,” she said.
Justice Laurie-Anne Smith-Bovell will deliver her summation on Friday.
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