Defence attorney for Shineka Gray murder accused starts closing argument

Defence lawyer Leroy Equiano, the attorney representing Gregory Roberts in the Shineka Gray murder trial, today sought to discredit the testimony of the defendants' former co-accused as he made his closing argument in the St James Circuit Court.

In his summation, Equiano sought to poke holes in the evidence given by Mario Morrison, who is currently serving a life sentence after pleading guilty in 2022 to the schoolgirl's murder.

Equiano accused him of having self-serving motives in the testimony he gave against his client.

“His friend [Roberts] picked him up, he [Morrison] went to the back of the car. The friend then picked up a lady, and this lady went to the front of the car. And then it gets even more interesting [because] where they stopped, he gave us one story here, then we realise the [police] statement had something else,” Equiano told the jury while seeking to discredit Morrison's previous testimony regarding the events leading to Gray's death on January 29, 2017.

“He's feeling for information because he doesn't want to tell us something…Here is the videoman telling you, according to the Crown, that he was not focused on what was going on, he was just holding the camera,” Equiano added, referencing Morrison's testimony that he had video-recorded Roberts stabbing Gray in Irwin, St James.

“But this was the man who, in the night, was taken to a certain place where the body was found, according to him, and he was able to lead the police back to that place. This is the Crown's witness, the 'trash' that the truck is carrying up the hill.”

Equiano also pointed to previous evidence by a forensic expert that DNA analysis found at the site where Gray's body was found failed to concretely identify or implicate Roberts.

The prosecution is expected to begin submitting its closing arguments upon completion of the defence's summation today.

- Christopher Thomas

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