Defence witness tells court he instructed man to put guns in bar

A defence witness told the court on Wednesday it was him, not the man charged before the court, who was responsible for two guns being placed in the spot police found them in at Survivors Bar and Chill Spot five years ago.

Anthony Williams, alias Hyper, testified in the trial of Dennis Alphonso Maynard, that he and another man who he referred to as Brekkie rented the Roach Village, St George bar, owned by the accused, to host a birthday fete on October 5, 2018. During the event, he said, he instructed another man to place the guns in a compartment on the ledge above the kitchen doors.

His testimony came after Maynard, who is charged with possession of a .40 semi-automatic pistol, a .22 semi-automatic pistol, 39 rounds of ammunition and 1.25 grammes of cannabis on October 6, 2018, gave an unsworn testimony from the dock in the No. 3 Supreme Court.

Giving evidence from the witness stand, Williams said that while the fete was going on, he went to the door to meet two people, Dog Catcher and Gaza.

“Dog Catcher had something in his hand. There’s a part where you does keep money so I tell Gaza go and put up those things in there for me…. It was two guns, Sir,” Williams said.

Questioned by Senior Counsel Andrew Pilgrim, who is representing Maynard, about where the guns were placed, Williams said they were placed in a compartment where money was kept during events. He claimed that the accused was not present at the establishment when the firearms were brought in.

When asked how he had intimate knowledge of the bar, Williams told the court that he was a carpenter by trade and had built the bar more than ten years ago, including the compartment on the ledge above the kitchen doors. 

He said Gaza had helped him in the construction and, therefore, knew where he was talking about when directed to put up the guns.

Williams said that later in the night, as the fete was going on, he went over to Maynard’s house and knocked on his bedroom window to inform him that more bowls and cups were needed at the bar. 

Saying that he was outside when the police “bore” the fete, Williams recalled that Maynard was taken into custody by the officers, but stressed that at no point either during the raid or after was he, as the event’s host, asked about the firearms by any member of the Barbados Police Service.

He also denied touching the guns.

“I didn’t touch them. I send somebody to put them up dey so,” he said.

During cross-examination by Principal State Counsel Neville Watson, Williams denied that the accused was his friend, and said he did not know him well.

Asked if he had seen the guns, the witness replied in the affirmative, saying one was silver and black and the other was all black; however, he did not know what type of guns they were.

“They were nuttin too big nor too long,” he testified.

“Did you see when the police took away Dennis Maynard?” the prosecutor asked. “You didn’t care that the police arrested this man?” 

“Sir, if the police did come to me, they woulda know that he was not involved…. They didn’t come to me,” Williams responded.

In his unsworn statement, Maynard told the nine-member jury that he had leased his bar to Williams and another man to host a fete on October 5, 2018. He said that on the night in question, upon returning home, he saw a gathering inside and outside of the establishment.

Around 2 a.m. on October 6, 2018, he was woken by Williams who said that cups and bowls were needed and he went to deliver them. The accused said he did not go into the bar and was standing outside when the police arrived. 

He said that after identifying himself as the proprietor when asked, he was given a warrant for the search and he told the police to go ahead. Maynard said when the search moved to the kitchen, the police officer asked him and another person, a kitchen worker, to accompany him. After the guns were discovered, both he and Greene denied knowing about the firearms.

“I told him to ask the people who I rented the bar to because I don’t know about no guns. He paid me no mind,” Maynard recalled, saying he repeated this several times, but it fell on “deaf ears”.

The accused said he was later taken to the District ‘A’ and the Oistins Police Stations before he was fingerprinted and formally charged.