Hostile crowd pelting bottles

A HOSTILE crowd of ten people or so were pelting broken bottles and stones at security guard Curt Melville, after he allegedly shot a teenager at a bar at Five Rivers, Arouca, on December 31, 2004.

Testifying yesterday, for the State, in the case against Melville, who is accused of killing 19-year-old Webster Damone Sutherland, was retired Sgt Carol Hinkson.

Hinkson said when she got to Williams Street, outside the People’s Bar, broken bottles and stones were being thrown at Melville by a hostile crowd.

She said she took Melville to safety. She also testified that Melville told her someone attacked him with a bottle and he shot him.

According to Hinkson, who admitted she was not there when Sutherland was shot, Melville still had the firearm in his hand, while the bottles and stones were being thrown at him.

“He was pointing it downwards...in a non-threatening position,” she said in response to questions from Melville’s attorney Pamela Elder, SC.

Hinkson also said she never saw Melville attempt to point the gun at the crowd. “He didn’t use the firearm as if he had a licence to kill?”

Elder asked, referring to the description given by lead prosecutor Joy Balkaran in her opening address to the jury last week.

“I cannot say. He had it downwards,” Hinkson said. The prosecution is alleging that Melville, a former estate sergeant, acted outside his authority by “rubbing down” Sutherland and his friends, and taking out his service pistol and shooting the teenager in the head.

Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas is presiding over the trial which continues today.