After spending a little over two years on remand, a 36-year-old Belmont man has been freed of murdering a man from Morvant.
Anton “Ton” Beckles, of Upper St Francois Valley Road, Belmont, was discharged by Magistrate Rehanna Hosein after she upheld a no-case submission at the end of his preliminary inquiry in the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court on Monday.
Beckles was accused of murdering Michael John, who was shot dead outside his Second Caledonia, Morvant home on July 17, 2020.
Beckles’ preliminary inquiry began before Chief Magistrate Maria Busby-Earle-Caddle but was aborted and transferred to Magistrate Hosein.
When the case commenced before her, the female police officer who charged Beckles with the crime had to be substituted, as she and her husband, who is also a police officer, were charged with money laundering and illegal gambling.
During the case, State prosecutors initially applied to use the statement of a witness who implicated Beckles, but gave investigators a false name and could not be located to testify. However, the application under Section 15(C) of the Evidence Act was subsequently abandoned.
Beckles’ lawyers, Wayne Sturge and Lindi Guiseppi, also successfully challenged attempts to allow John’s wife to introduce fresh evidence in the case. In her testimony, she claimed to have overheard Beckles and two of his relatives, who were not charged with the crime, discussing attacking her husband minutes before he was eventually shot.
In their no-case submission, which Magistrate Hosein agreed with, Sturge and Guiseppi claimed that State prosecutors failed to produce sufficient evidence that their client was part of a joint enterprise to kill John.
The case was prosecuted by Jade Charles.