Williams: Cops suspected me because I smelled like a cattle

Thanks to a technicality, Reuden Williams no longer has a charge of theft hanging over his head.{{more}}

Williams, a professed marijuana farmer of Lowmans Bay, was acquitted on Tuesday at the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court of the charge of stealing a cow valued at $3,500 belonging to Isaac Williams.

Senior Magistrate Donald Browne was left with no choice but to dismiss the charge against Reuden after lone prosecution eye-witness, Anthony Warren, failed to identify Reuden as the man who was walking with the cow through the Old Montrose area on June 7, 2009.

Warren in his testimony told the court that while on guard at the Botanic Gardens, he saw a man walking with a cow. “I said to myself that that is somebody’s poor cattle going there… so i shouted to him and say that is not your cattle,” Warren recalled.

Warren added that the man told him that he stole the cow and I said to him, “See how far you could get before the Special Services Unit (SSU) meet you.”

Warren told the court that the thief was wearing a bandana around his face and had a cutlass in his hand. He admitted that he could not identify Williams and it was only when the police returned with Williams that he (Warren) tagged him as the man seen walking with the cow.

Under re-examination by prosecutor Sergeant Glenford Gregg, Warren repeatedly stated that he could not have seen the defendant’s face when he spoke to him, because of a bandana he had tied around it.

In his testimony, Reuden said that he had just returned from the Bow Wood mountains and upon reaching the Botanic Gardens gate, he was approached by police officers in respect of a stolen cow. Williams said he denied any knowledge of the stolen cow and the officers proceeded to search him. “The police tell me dem suspect is me because I was the only one on the road and I smell like a cattle,” Reuden recounted.

He also denied ever speaking to Warren in the wee hours of June 7.

When the animal was found in the Dam Wall area in Old Montrose, Williams said the police told him to untie the cow from around a lamp post, but he refused to do so. “When me ain’t do it, they tied the rope around me and beat the cow, so it carry me back all the way to de station (police station).

In his ruling, Magistrate Browne stated that the entire case was based upon a question of identification and that Warren could not identify the culprit. “I believe Warren is not speaking the truth, but the court has to take a certain course. If anything, Warren is the fly in the ointment, but this court will have to dismiss the case on a technicality,” Browne concluded.