Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A Laven­tille man has been freed of charges re­lat­ed to a shoot­ing in 2021 which claimed the lives of three men and left four oth­ers se­ri­ous­ly in­jured. 

Ron Grant, 35, of Pic­ton Road, was freed of the charges af­ter Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle up­held a no-case sub­mis­sion at the end of his pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates’ Court on Mon­day. 

Grant was charged with mur­der­ing Sher­von Charles and Joshua Fran­cis, both 17, of East Dry Riv­er, Port-of-Spain, and 31-year-old Ke­ston Bai­ley, of Bel­mont, on No­vem­ber 29, 2021. 

Around 11 am, Bai­ley and the teenagers were lim­ing with friends at Des­pers Av­enue, Des­per­lie Cres­cent, Laven­tille, when a group of gun­men at­tacked them be­fore re­turn­ing to an await­ing ve­hi­cle and dri­ving away. 

Bai­ley died on the scene, while Charles, Fran­cis, and four of their friends, who were al­so wound­ed, were tak­en to the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal for treat­ment. 

Charles and Fran­cis died while un­der­go­ing emer­gency surgery, while their four friends sur­vived. 

Al­most one month af­ter the shoot­ing, Grant was ar­rest­ed and slapped with three mur­der charges, four at­tempt­ed mur­der charges, and firearm and am­mu­ni­tion pos­ses­sion charges. 

In his no-case sub­mis­sion, Grant’s lawyer Alex­ia Romero chal­lenged the ev­i­dence of the State’s main wit­ness, who was not at the scene of the shoot­ing but im­pli­cat­ed Grant af­ter view­ing CCTV footage of the in­ci­dent.

Romero raised sev­er­al in­con­sis­ten­cies in the wit­ness’s ev­i­dence. She al­so point­ed out that the footage did not re­veal any defin­ing fea­tures of the gun­men which could be used for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. 

As part of her de­ci­sion in the case, Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle or­dered that Grant, who has been on re­mand since be­ing charged, be im­me­di­ate­ly re­leased. 

Grant was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Sid­diq Man­zano.