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Accused on trial for former GPHC’s dispatcher murder to know fate today
Accused: Alan Sim
Kaieteur News – Allan Sim, the man accused of murdering former Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) dispatcher, Melissa Skeete is set to know his fate today after the mixed 12-member panel of jurors deliberates on the evidence presented in his trial.
Sim, who is facing a trial before Justice Navindra Singh and the jury in the Georgetown High Court, has since led a defence in which he denied having any involvement in the crime.
The accused called his former attorney, Patrice Henry to take the stand as a witness in his defence when he joined the proceedings via Zoom from the Lusignan Prison on Tuesday.
Murdered: Melissa Skeete
Sim told the court after he was arrested by the police, he was taken to several station and questioned about his former partner Skeete’s death but he never responded to the officers.
In fact, the accused claimed that he remained silent throughout the interrogation. He said that at no time did he provide any statement to the police as they had alleged. The accused claimed too that he did not respond because he was advised by his attorney at the time, Henry, not to respond to the policemen. Henry was then called upon to take the witness stand by attorney Adrian Thompson to substantiate the claims of the accused.
In his sworn testimony, Henry confirmed that he had instructed Sim to remain silent when the police put questions to him. The lawyer claimed he visited the Criminal Investigation Department, (CID) Eve Leary sometime and spoke to Sim, who confirmed that he had remained silent.
The lawyer was cross-examined by Senior State Counsel, Tuanna Hardy who suggested that he could not say without a doubt that his client had adhered to his instructions because he was not with his client at all times after he was placed in the custody of the police. After much back and forth, the lawyer agreed with the suggestion.
Sim’s defence came following testimonies of several witness including police investigators who claimed that the accused had said that he stabbed the woman using a surgical blade with which she first attacked him.
Additionally, State Pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh testified that Skeete died of perforation of the lung due to a stab wound to the chest. He agreed with suggestion that the woman may have had what are termed “some defensive wounds” about her body.
Skeete, a 32-year-old dispatcher attached to GPHC was stabbed several times about her body on Carmichael Street in the vicinity of The Bishops’ High School and the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre on November 23, 2015. The incident is said to have occurred in the daytime while children were still at school. Based on reports, on the day in question, her 60 year- old former partner, Sim, had showed up at the woman’s workplace in his motorcar and picked her up. Sometime later, Skeete was found lying on the roadway in the vicinity of Carmichael Street, Georgetown bleeding profusely from several stab wounds. She died while receiving treatment at the GPHC.
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