Accused back in jail after contacting witness

A Corporate Area man was remanded into custody by a senior parish judge following his utterances about the whereabouts of a Crown witness.

The defendant, Paul Skeen, who was offered bail earlier this year, after spending more than three months in custody, lost his freedom when he indicated that he knew the whereabouts of the complainant in a matter against him.

"Your Honour, me and him talk when me come from jail and him say him done with the case. Him say him nah come back. Him deh a country now," Skeen told the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court. Skeen is before the court for threatening a Crown witness. The witness is crucial to a matter of robbery with aggravation that is also before the court. However, when the matter was mentioned, the witness was not present in court.

But Skeen's information peeved Senior Parish Judge Sanchia Burrell.

"You are remanded in custody. How is it that you are communicating with the witness and you know where Crown's witness is? The Crown doesn't know where the man is and you can tell where the man is," the senior jurist expressed.

Following the judge's decision, the defendant, dressed in a white T-shirt, black jeans and slippers, sat in the prisoner's dock and started to weep.

"Your Honour, me just get a likkle work yuh know," Skeen bellowed.

"We need to find this witness," Burrell stressed.

Skeen was remanded in custody until June 11, when the matter is set for mention.