One found guilty in bar robbery trial
A jury has found Dallas Edwards guilty of the armed robbery of the Sideline bar but his friend who was found with a pistol and a balaclava three weeks later has walked free.
Twenty-three-year-old Jackson Manson was able to leave the Christchurch District Court dock and hold and kiss a baby in the public seats when the jury delivered its verdicts after about three hours of deliberations.
The two men exchanged a friendly pat in the dock when the verdicts came out on the fifth day of the trial before Judge Paul Kellar and a jury.
Edwards, 25, must have realised he now faces a long jail term at his sentencing on November 6, after taking the case to trial. His mother was in tears and insisted on hugging and kissing her son before he was taken back into custody for sentencing.
Judge Kellar told the jury he thought the lawyers had conducted the trial “in a very fair manner” and he thanked the jury for its work.
He said he agreed with their verdict about Edwards, and that his lawyer Lee Lee Heah had done a good job when she did not have a lot to work with.
Manson declined to talk to the media after the verdict. His defence counsel Tim Fournier told the court that he remained on bail on another charge in the meantime.
Crown prosecutors Sara Jamieson and Kathy Bell had presented a circumstantial case to link Edwards to the November 7, 2012, robbery, but the two men denied the charges saying they were not the two balaclava-clad intruders who got away with $4545 in takings from the bar and poker machines at closing time. The bar is in Stanmore Road, Richmond.
The robbers got away in a car afterwards but the Crown said a series of circumstances pointed to Edwards and Manson being the men involved.
Judge Paul Kellar summed up the case, telling the jury that there was no need for the Crown to prove beyond reasonable doubt every circumstance that it relied on. It needed to “reliably prove” the circumstances.
He quoted from a judge’s comments in an 1886 case which said the circumstantial evidence should not be considered as a chain, where a broken link would break the connection, but as the strands of a rope which provided strength when they were combined.
Judge Kellar said: “A circumstantial case derives its force from a number of factors that independently point to the guilt of a defendant. Essentially, it says that a defendant is guilty, or is the victim of an implausible series of coincidences.”
Identity was the basis of the defence, and the lawyers both suggested that the prosecution had not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
The jury was shown 40 exhibits, including a pistol found wrapped in a balaclava in Manson’s car three weeks after the robbery, during the Crown’s presentation of its case.
The Crown had tried to convince the jury that Manson was involved because the two had exchanged text messages before the robbery, including arranging to “strategise”, and Edwards had apparently been at Manson’s house in the hours after the robbery.
Edwards’ palm print was found at the scene of the robbery, and he was flush with money – including coins in clear plastic bank bags – for a shopping spree after the robbery. But those very direct links were not there in the case against Manson.
Category: News
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