A policeman who was convicted in July 2007 of unlawful wounding and sentenced to 18 months' imprison-ment has been freed by the Court of Appeal.

Constable Everton Roberts had his conviction quashed and his sentence set aside because the court found many flaws in the prosecution's case.

Two men who were part of a boisterous crowd at Four Roads, St Andrew, were shot and wounded on May 2, 2003. Roberts was arrested and charged with two counts of unlawful wounding in connection with the shooting.

He gave an unsworn statement at his trial and denied shooting the complainants. He said he was not placed on an identification parade and stressed that his hands were swabbed for gunpowder residue.

The court, after hearing submissions from attorney-at-law Leroy Equiano, ruled that there was no evidence to connect the constable to the offences.

The court also said that the ballistics evidence did not implicate the policeman and the swabs taken from his hands did not indicate any presence of gunshot residue.

The prosecution's case was that on May 2, 2003, the police were on duty, along with Transport Authority employees, stopping motorists in relation to breaches of the Road Traffic Act. A crowd gathered and became boisterous when a motor vehicle was being placed on a wrecker to be impounded.

No ballistics evidence

Persons in the crowd threw stones at a police vehicle and a cop fired a shot in retaliation, hitting Courtney Smith and Richard Peddler, both of Kingston. The complainants did not know Roberts prior to the incident. A year later, he was identified by means of dock identification.

It was the court's finding that there was no evidence to connect the policeman to the offences because the ballistics evidence did not implicate him "and this included the evidence as to the result of the swabbing, which indicated that there was no presence of gunshot residue in relation to these swabs".

Justice Seymour Panton, president of the Court of Appeal, and Justices Hazel Harris and Dennis Morrison said that the case was not properly investigated. The court referred to the absence of the medical evidence, the failure to hold an identification parade and the imprecision of a police inspector who was unable to give satisfactory evidence about the type of firearm she had taken from Roberts.