Retrial in child killing case set for summer

(CNS): A West Bay man will be tried for the second time this summer for the murder of a 4-year-old child in February 2010. On Friday morning Devon Anglin (29) entered not guilty pleas for the second time to the murder of Jeremiah Barnes, the attempted murder of Andy Barnes and possession of an unlicensed firearm, as a new three week trial was fixed for July. Jeremiah was killed while sitting in the back of his family’s car when a masked gunman opened fire at a gas station on Hell Road. The crown claimed the gunman was Devon Anglin, who was trying to shoot gang rival Andy Barnes, the child’s father, but he was acquitted following a judge alone trial in August 2011.

The crown waited over 18 months to learn that its appeal to overturn that decision had succeeded. The appeal court decision was delivered last month, when the president announced that the crown’s appeal was allowed, as the judge had erred in his review of the evidence.

As a result, the higher court ordered a retrial. Anglin appeared in court on Friday and when the charges were read he again denied being the gunman who had opened fire on the Barnes’ car as it was parked on the forecourt of the West Bay station.

When Anglin returns to the dock for the re-trial, it will be more than five years since the incident but the case depends heavily on the eye-witness evidence of both Andy Barnes and his wife, Dorlisa Barnes, both of whom said that Anglin was the man they saw shoot them, along with CCTV footage taken from the gas station.

The judge had, however, rejected both of the Barnes’ evidence and instead favoured the witness evidence given by a gas pump attendant, which conflicted with the evidence given by Barnes and that of the CCTV.