Witness: Sergeant, corporal denied firing weapons at Acadia scene
Published:Tuesday | February 10, 2026 | 12:13 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
Two of the six policemen on trial in the Home Circuit Court in connection with the January 2013 fatal shooting of three men along Acadia Drive, St Andrew, had reported that they did not fire their weapons during the deadly encounter.
A detective corporal, who was an investigator in the case, testified that he was told by Sergeant Simroy Mott that neither he nor Corporal Donovan Fullerton was involved in the shooting.
Mott and Fullerton, along with Constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose and Richard Lynch, are facing murder charges in relation to the January 12, 2013 deaths of Matthew Lee, Mark Allen and Ucliffe Dyer on Acadia Drive.
The police witness told the court that he received the information when he visited the crime scene on the day of the shooting, after responding to a radio transmission at the Constant Spring Police Station, where he was stationed.
He previously testified that all six accused policemen had told him they signalled a car carrying four men to stop, but one of the occupants alighted and opened fire, resulting in an exchange of gunshots. According to the account given to him, one of the men escaped along Evans Avenue and fled into a gully. The witness also testified that Mott had handed him two firearms.
The detective corporal said he recorded what he was told in his notebook, before transferring the information to the station diary. However, he told the court that he is now unable to locate the notebook.
Before completing his evidence in chief, the witness said that Ucliffe Dyer was known to him prior to the incident, as Dyer had been reporting to the station in relation to a criminal charge.
During cross-examination by defence attorney Hugh Wildman, the witness said he arrived at the Acadia Drive scene less than 15 minutes after receiving the radio transmission. He testified that he saw several police personnel and interacted with Mott at the entrance of Evans Avenue.
He further told the court that both Mott and Fullerton explained what had occurred, including that four gunmen had engaged them and that one suspect escaped along Evans Avenue.
The witness said he later proceeded along Evans Avenue with several police personnel, including Mott and Fullerton, and spoke with an elderly man in whose yard he was told the fourth man had run.
However, when Wildman asked the witness what he was told, prosecutor Kathy-Ann Pyke objected on the basis of hearsay.
Wildman, in response, said the statement formed part of the res gestae and was therefore admissible as an exception to the hearsay rule, prompting legal submissions in the absence of the jury. Res gestae is a rule of evidence allowing statements made spontaneously during or immediately after an event to be admissible, even if they would otherwise be considered hearsay.
The submissions continued up to the close of the day’s proceedings and are to be completed on Wednesday, when the trial resumes, at which time Justice Sonia Bertram Linton is expected to rule on whether the evidence will be admitted.