CHIEF Justice Bryan Sykes is today expected to cap his summation for the cases of the final four of the remaining 15 alleged members of the St Catherine-based “Uchence Wilson Gang” in what has been a lengthy and painstaking exercise.

The 15 remaining individuals, including the alleged mastermind Uchence “Terrence” Wilson, who were among close to 30 arrested by the Counter-Terrorism and Organized Crime (C-TOC) unit in 2017, were said to be part of one of the island’s most organised and vile gangs responsible for robberies, extortions, rapes, murders and the pilfering of a number of licensed firearms.

But since the beginning of the trial in March of 2019 a number of the accused have walked after the Crown’s case against them fell apart due to insufficient evidence against them, the latest being on Monday when former accused Sheldon Cripps was found not guilty of being part of a criminal organisation and facilitating a serious offence by a criminal organisation, and was freed.

At the same time, six of the accused gang members were also acquitted of additional charges on Monday but were not freed as they face other counts in the same matter. Yesterday morning another three of the accused were declared not guilty on several counts on the indictment but are yet to know their fate in respect of other counts. Justice Sykes yesterday afternoon, in continuing his summation, addressed the case involving eight of the accused.

The chief justice yesterday said one issue to be determined was that of “voluntariness” following his review of evidence given by accused Stephenson Bennett who claimed not to have been the one to tell the police where to locate Wilson when they collared him in 2017. According to the police, it was Bennett who offered to take them to find Wilson but, based on Bennett’s account, he did not tell them where Wilson was. The chief justice said the question would now be as to whether any statement made by Bennett as to his own involvement and that of any of the other persons, including Wilson, “was freely given”.

“He has raised the issue of voluntariness and so that will have to be addressed. In effect he is saying he did not give the police any information because the police already knew where to go,” the chief justice said in noting further that the testimony of Bennett, Wilson and Fitzroy Scott, the alleged second-in-command of the criminal outfit as it related to that incident, coincided. The chief justice further noted aspects of Bennett’s testimony where he said he was beaten with a gun by a detective sergeant and shocked with a taser. He further claimed that the police officer kept telling him they were “going to kill him” .

“So essentially it’s a denial of the prosecution’s case and alleging that he was maltreated by the police,” Justice Sykes stated, noting that this had implications for the admissibility of any statement held by the Crown that he may have made.

Sixty-one items were entered into evidence, including pawnshop contracts, cellphone data, car-rental contracts, a rifle, a ballistics report, and cellphones seized from alleged gang members. Wilson’s passport, which places him outside of the country when he is said to have participated in a robbery, was also admitted into evidence.