Teen returns to courtroom after 6 month trial break

(CNS): Seventeen-year-old Elmer Wright returned to the Grand Court dock on Monday when his trial for the attempted murder of a police officer and the robbery of a Bodden Town gas station resumed after a break of more than six months. Problems with DNA evidence meant the trial, which is being heard by Justice Smith, had to be adjourned just a few days after it started. The teen faces six serious charges and is accused of being part of a gang of four masked men that robbed Mostyns Esso gas station in June last year. Wright is also accused of shooting at the police as he attempted to flee. The teenager is the only man police have charged in connection with the robbery, in which the shotgun and the car used in the crime were both stolen. (Photo Dennie WarrenJr)

When the crown opened its case against the teen last year, Cheryl Richards QC, the then solicitor general and now the director of public prosecutions, highlighted eye witness, circumstantial and forensic evidence linking the teenager to the crime.

The crime took place in June 2010 at Mostyns Esso Gas Station in Bodden Town. Wright and three other men are said to have robbed the gas station of around $1,000 with the use of shotguns before escaping towards George Town in a getaway car, which was chased by a passing police patrol unit.

The suspects turned into Northward Road, where they all got out of the car and three of them ran behind a house. The defendant, however, is accused of lingering behind his accomplices, loading the shotgun and, before taking flight, firing at unarmed police in the patrol car which had chased the robbers.

The teen was arrested a short while later by one of the USG units set up in the wake of the robbery on the corner of Beach Bay Road and Shamrock Road. He was found to have several hundred dollars on him and was wearing similar clothes to those described by the robbery victims, which were later found to have gunshot residue on them.

A shotgun was also found very close by to the arrest, which later proved to have Wright’s DNA on it. The crown further revealed that swabs taken from the teen's hands that evening tested positive for gunshot residue.